


Mercy of the Fallen

by gaudior



Series: Mercy of the Fallen [3]
Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Canonical Rape/Non-con, Case Fic, Child Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Metaphysics, Rape Aftermath, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:29:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 63,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaudior/pseuds/gaudior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things Tsuzuki just can’t live with. Like his job. His memories. His part in the death of innocents. Himself.</p><p>There are some things Hisoka just can’t live without. Like Tsuzuki.</p><p>Something’s got to give...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my hardworking betas, walkerminion, weirdquark, signy1 and rushthatspeaks. Thanks also to Matsushita Yoko-sensei for starting this whole thing, to syonakeleste for tremendous amounts of work and good critique, to thedemonprist and rushthatspeaks for Muraki-inspiration, and midnite_phoenix for research help.

Sex surprised Hisoka for a number of reasons.   
  
For one thing, he hadn’t expected to have it that evening. They were sitting on his couch, Tsuzuki’s arm around him, fallen into a long, comfortable silence. Tsuzuki broke it. “I looked at a calendar... it’s been four months today.”   
  
Since the fire, Hisoka thought. Since Kyoto. “Yeah.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “I’m glad you came after me, Hisoka.”   
  
Hisoka watched their two loves twine around each other, filling in each other’s gaps. “I’d do it again if you ever tried anything that...” ‘Stupid’ was the word meant to end that sentence, but Tsuzuki’s suicide attempt hadn’t been careless nor unconsidered, and Hisoka knew it. He let the sentence fall unended.  
  
Tsuzuki finished it with a kiss.   
  
Hisoka opened his mouth gladly, welcoming. This was his favorite part of their evenings these last few weeks-- touch and taste, Tsuzuki in his mouth and in his mind, letting go of everything except feeling. Hisoka tilted his head, part of his mind calculating. He couldn’t push too hard, he thought, had to figure out exactly how far he could go this time before pulling back. He needs time, Hisoka reminded himself, his lips light on Tsuzuki’s. It’s only been a few months. I can’t make him go faster than... Tsuzuki drew back for a moment, his eyes contemplative. Then he put his arm around Hisoka’s back, pulling him to him, hard.   
  
Hisoka’s eyes blinked open in surprise. Tsuzuki felt charged, like he’d just leapt into battle. Oh, Hisoka thought, he’s... _oh._ The excitement reverberated through Hisoka, blended into his own long desiring. He’s... he’s ready, then, Hisoka thought. Am I? He opened his mouth wider, hungry. I think... Tsuzuki’s lips gentle on his weren’t enough-- he wanted more, wanted to take him all in. His arms went around Tsuzuki’s strong shoulders, pulling him closer. Yes, he thought. Now. Finally. Yes.   
  
Hisoka panted against Tsuzuki’s mouth, feeling Tsuzuki’s muscles through his shirt. All right, he thought, holding tight, trying not to feel overwhelmed. Mouth, arms, chest, hip, hands-- he kept losing track of his body parts. There were too many points of contact, too many sensations, and the physical ones were only half of it. Tsuzuki’s satisfaction was warm on his lips, around his shoulders, need and thrill blending into the touch. His gladness and anticipation rose through Hisoka, and Hisoka followed Tsuzuki’s feelings, his best guide through all of this. You know what you’re doing here, he thought. Show me...   
  
His hand clenched in Tsuzuki’s hair. That should have felt strange but Hisoka didn’t fight it-- it was so exactly what he needed, what Tsuzuki needed. It felt right. Nothing had ever felt this _right._ Tsuzuki, he thought, meaning love and lust and how precisely right it was to be doing this with _him,_ demon scars and puppy-appetite and all. Appetite-- he thought Tsuzuki was starving for him, still not taking all he wanted. He wants to feel me _here,_ Hisoka thought, his lips following where he could feel the skin needed to be touched-- into the cleft of Tsuzuki’s neck, where his life beat hot and speeding. Tsuzuki moaned encouragement, and Hisoka felt Tsuzuki’s throat move against his lips, felt the moan surprise him with its volume-- Tsuzuki’s surprise, but what difference does it make? I never knew, Hisoka thought, licking at the strong line of Tsuzuki’s neck, feeling cool air hit wet skin, that I could like the empathy. But then, there was never anyone I wanted to feel before. Never anyone I ever wanted to have inside me...   
  
He whimpered with Tsuzuki’s pleasure as he unbuttoned his partner’s shirt to get at his collarbone, loving the hot smooth skin against his lips, tasting Tsuzuki’s sweat. He wants me close, Hisoka thought, Tsuzuki’s hands running through his hair, over his back, under his shirt, Tsuzuki’s tongue on his ear and that would be a ridiculous thing to do, but caring about the awkwardness seemed to be in another universe from this. Closer, he thought, I want him closer, I want to feel his weight on me. That wasn’t Hisoka’s feeling, he didn’t think. It was an odd want. But the oddness mattered so much less than the wanting.   
  
It took a moment’s fumbling to flip over on the couch so he was sitting on Tsuzuki’s lap, face to face, bodies pressed together. Tsuzuki’s wide eyes met his and they were beautiful, crystalline depths so alive and so present and so very _aware_ that Hisoka’s ... ( _penis,_ he thought, blushing, call it by its right name, but that word seemed so... beside the point. This wasn’t about textbook diagrams or bathroom walls or hissed insults. It was about them, and about now, and about how he could feel Tsuzuki, hard through four layers of cloth, could feel Tsuzuki feel him)... that Hisoka was hard against him, wanting him. It should be embarrassing, but Tsuzuki smiled and held him close and embarrassment fled in the face of the need to _move_ against him, just right, to feel his thighs tense between Hisoka’s, to hear him pant and moan endearments, to feel their bodies meeting, movements jerkily off-kilter from each other as they struggled to find each other’s rhythm. Hisoka should have been embarrassed to hear himself whimper like this, should have been too self-possessed to be beating himself against his partner’s lap, but these were Tsuzuki’s hands on his hips just right pulling him closer and harder and that was Tsuzuki’s shirt his hands were clenching fists in as his body twisted without his command and that was Tsuzuki’s sweat against his cheek against his neck and that was Tsuzuki’s arousal growing stronger and stronger with every thrust and every moan, but that was Hisoka’s shout starting at his core and echoing through every inch of his body when he came.   
  
Hisoka collapsed, panting, his body molded to Tsuzuki’s. That’s... he thought. We didn’t even take our clothes off. But that’s...  
  
“Hisoka?” Tsuzuki whispered.  
  
Hisoka raised his heavy head and _grinned_ at him, and Tsuzuki almost came just from the sight of it. _Never saw him look like that,_ Hisoka caught, close enough now to hear his partner’s feelings almost in words, _never knew he could look like that-- so_ beautiful. _Hisoka..._ Hisoka leaned in to kiss him, less urgently, just for the sheer pleasure of the fact that he could. It felt so good. So much better than doing this on his own. He hadn’t realized he could feel this good. He half-laughed against Tsuzuki’s mouth from sheer amazement, and Tsuzuki’s arms went tight around him, and Tsuzuki was so tremblingly glad he could burst with it. He’s never felt this good, Hisoka thought, not in all the time I’ve known him. No memories, no fears-- he’s just here with me.   
  
“That okay?” Tsuzuki murmured, feeling happily sure of the answer, but asking anyway. Hisoka nodded, not trusting his control over his voice. More than okay, he thought. Much more. He felt a twinge underneath him. But it’s not over yet...   
  
Hisoka lay against Tsuzuki for a moment, considering the mechanics of it. Then he slipped off the couch to kneel on the floor between Tsuzuki’s legs. From here, he could feel Tsuzuki’s arousal almost through the air, and his grin melted into a small, fascinated smile. He unfastened Tsuzuki’s belt and leaned in.  
  
Tsuzuki started. “Hisoka...?”   
  
”What?” Hisoka’s research had been fairly extensive over the last several months, and he thought he had a relatively clear idea of how this worked. It’s easy if you just read the directions, he thought, pulling Tsuzuki’s zipper down, and keep a clear head. He winced, though, at the sight of Tsuzuki’s... penis, thick and solid and inches from his face. That was... his mind stayed mercifully free of sudden memories, but the chill that always came with them made him shiver. This isn’t safe, he heard himself thinking, getting this close. It’s dangerous, he could do anything...   
  
“Hisoka,” Tsuzuki said, gently. “You don’t have to do that.”   
  
Hisoka shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I want to.” Maybe if he closed his eyes...  
  
Tsuzuki put a hand on his shoulder, brought his head up. “But I want to kiss you.”   
  
Oh, Hisoka thought, with more relief than he cared to admit. Well. All right, then. He put a hand on the couch to clamber up, arriving next to Tsuzuki with an undignified thump. It didn’t matter much. Wanting... there was so much wanting in the air, his and Tsuzuki’s, and this was far too long to go without touching him. He leaned in to take Tsuzuki’s mouth again, fiercely, thinking, you don’t have to coddle me, you know. I want this. I want you. Tsuzuki closed his eyes, air cool on his exposed skin, waiting, aching for him. I could do something about that, Hisoka thought. He rested his hand on Tsuzuki’s thigh, feeling hard muscle tense through the wrinkled cloth, seeing Tsuzuki pulse toward the touch. I can touch him there, Hisoka thought. I can barely stand not to-- I _want._ Hisoka skimmed his hand along Tsuzuki’s thigh and reached out to curve his fingers around him.   
  
They whimpered at the contact and Hisoka was lost between the hot, smooth weight he held and the brilliant sensation of being held by his own hand. “Yes,” Tsuzuki murmured, “please,” but Hisoka didn’t need to be asked, he could feel how urgent it was to move. Not the light touch he usually started out with for himself, either, he wanted a harder, faster motion. Or Tsuzuki did, but he couldn’t tell them apart any more and didn’t want to. Hisoka ducked his head to spit on his hand, feeling awkward about it until he realized that Tsuzuki loved the sight, the sound, the faint smell. Tsuzuki’s arm was around his shoulders, but they weren’t kissing, weren’t touching at all otherwise-- just that one point of contact where Hisoka reached out for him again, felt him sliding slick across his palm, fingers tensing around him.   
  
_Good,_ Hisoka felt, _not perfect, but good, so good, and he had been missing this feeling for so long..._ Half a memory flashed through his mind, _someone else’s hand, strong and sure on him, welcomed, loved, but with so much regret in the touch..._ Hisoka frowned, not liking the intrusion. Me, he thought. You’re with me. Not anyone else. He kissed Tsuzuki again, Tsuzuki panting for breath around his lips. His tongue thrust deep into Tsuzuki’s mouth, as Tsuzuki was getting harder in his hand, softness giving way to solidity. Tsuzuki’s arm tightened around his shoulder, fist clenching in his shirt, and there was control, there, Hisoka could still feel it, a reluctance to move too quickly, to do anything that might scare him.   
  
The hell with that, Hisoka thought, and tightened his grip, bringing his other hand over to flick across Tsuzuki’s crown, hands moving together to surround him, overwhelm him. Tsuzuki gasped, Hisoka moving with him, having trouble coordinating his movements, but when he got it right, he got it _so_ right, so good. There was the oddest contrast between what Tsuzuki looked like outside, surrounded by Hisoka’s fingers, and how he felt inside. Inside was bigger, inside he felt big as Meifu, like he was all that existed and every different place along his length was distinct and desiring. His orgasm had a physical location, _there,_ he could feel it starting to grow and grow strong. Interesting, Hisoka thought, but he was losing track of his thoughts. He was surrounded by pleasure, drawn in, he had to move faster, harder, he needed this. “Yes,” Tsuzuki panted, eyes shut tight, “like that, Hisoka, _please_...”   
  
Hisoka panted satisfaction. Tsuzuki wasn’t being careful now. He moved faster. Hard again, Hisoka realized, he was hard, too, was panting as loudly as Tsuzuki, thrusting against empty air, empathy reverberating between them, and he could feel his fingers on Tsuzuki as on himself. Need, he needed this, needed to tense, to moan, to swear delight and desperation. Every twist of Hisoka’s fingers and movement of his wrists took him farther from language, farther from himself, until he was only his body, only his heart, only his voice crying out, only the sheer physical rejoicing of this motion. _So grateful, so glad, so good to be with him now._  
  
Tsuzuki’s hand clenched on his shoulder to communicate that he’d found just the right movement, but Hisoka had known that already and could no more have stopped moving than stopped breathing. Which he might have done, he wouldn’t notice, all he knew was this driving urge for completion. His hands were moving unerringly, now, he could feel them around himself, Tsuzuki’s head thrown back, hand digging into the couch. “I’m going to...” Tsuzuki gasped, and Hisoka knew it, could feel it, chased it down. Tsuzuki was rocking off the couch, into his hands, into his mind, and he’d lost track of his own body, lost track of the idea of bodies at all. “Now,” someone panted, “ _now,_ ” and Tsuzuki cried out, lost and freed. He spilled over Hisoka’s hands, spurting again and again, and it blended with Hisoka’s own last explosive thrust against the air, messy and sticky and right, peripheral to the sheer pleasure of release. That’s it, Hisoka thought, holding on through the last few spurts and collapsing bonelessly against Tsuzuki’s shoulder, that’s it, that’s exactly it... His last thought was a wordless _mmmmmmm_ reverberating between the two of them, perfectly right.  
  
Hisoka didn’t notice losing consciousness, but he couldn’t have been out long. His first thought was that he was still holding Tsuzuki loosely in his fist, and hadn’t he read somewhere that the ancient Hebrews used to grab each other’s inner thighs when they swore, to show trust? Like this. Trust-- he could trust him, could trust him with all of this, as Tsuzuki could trust him to take him in his hand and treat him tenderly. He felt so _good_ , Hisoka thought. He’s never felt that good, not in all the time I’ve known him. But now he does-- because of what we did together. This is the best thing I have ever done, Hisoka thought. Making him feel like that. I have never done anything as worthwhile as that. I made him happy.   
  
Hisoka sighed, drifting in Tsuzuki’s emotions, and that was where he got his greatest shock of the evening. Tsuzuki was looking down at him, stroking his hair gently, eyes brimming with unshed tears. Tsuzuki thought they were happy tears, release and relief and comfort at long last. Tsuzuki thought he was happy. And so Tsuzuki was holding onto this happiness with every fiber of his will, determined to enjoy it to the fullest before it was taken away.  
  
Taken away? Hisoka wondered, unnerved. I’m not going anywhere. “Tsuzuki,” he whispered, and the hand on his hair paused. “I want to stay with you. I want to always stay with you.”  
  
“I love you,” Tsuzuki whispered, which wasn’t an answer. Tsuzuki couldn’t bring himself to say always back, because none of his always’ ever lasted-- except that he would always, after each promise made to him, be alone again. That one stayed.   
  
The next to last thing that surprised Hisoka about sex that evening was how it changed him, how he felt reborn, made anew, his purpose revised and clarified.  
  
The last thing that surprised Hisoka about sex that evening was how, for Tsuzuki, it didn’t seem to change anything at all.


	2. Chapter One

  
It was like Tsuzuki, Hisoka thought as he opened the door of the break room, to try to make friends with everyone. At this particular moment, he seemed to have picked the cleaning lady, who looked like she didn’t mind at all. She was leaning back in an office chair listening to Tsuzuki with her hands clasped around her sizable belly, head thrown back in a laugh. Tsuzuki was in his element, hands spread wide and expressive voice tripping up and down as he told some story-- Hisoka thought it might have been the one about the time with the talking animals and the snow queen. Certainly, his partner was enjoying the chance to narrate for an appreciative audience, and Hisoka was almost sorry to take him away from it. Almost. “Hey, Tsuzuki!”  
  
Tsuzuki looked up and Hisoka felt his emotions flare-- a combination of _ohdamnI’mlatehe’sgonnayellatme_ and the newly customary delight at seeing him again. “Ah, Hisoka!” He turned to the cleaning lady. “This is him-- my partner.” The cleaning lady smiled widely. “Hisoka, this is Yin.”   
  
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Hisoka said briefly. “Tsuzuki, the meeting was supposed to start five minutes ago. What are you doing here?”   
  
“Oh!” Tsuzuki said, though Hisoka could feel perfectly well how surprised his partner wasn’t. “It should be okay. They can start without us.”  
  
“They didn’t,” Hisoka said. “They sent me to find you.” He didn’t need to say anything else-- his expression and tone of voice were enough to say _and none of us are happy about it._  
  
Tsuzuki’s face fell. “Sorry, Hisoka...” Hisoka said nothing. Tsuzuki grinned sheepishly at the cleaning lady, who looked perfectly unperturbed by this turn of events. “I guess I’ll talk to you later, Yin-san...”   
  
She nodded agreeably. “You go have your meeting,” she said. “And don’t you worry about that friend of yours, son. He’ll be all right.” Tsuzuki nodded his head, a little embarrassed, but comforted. She turned to Hisoka. “It’s nice to meet you, too, boy. Come say hi sometime, willya?”   
  
Hisoka had centuries of being called “boy” ahead of him, he supposed. Perhaps he might eventually get used to it. Perhaps. “Thank-you,” he said. He held the door open behind him, gesturing Tsuzuki out. Tsuzuki waved at the cleaning lady and went out. She smiled at both of them and settled back regally in her chair.  
  
In the hallway, Hisoka stalked away from the room, walking fast. Tsuzuki pattered after him. “Sorry, Hisoka. I didn’t think they’d send you looking for me...”  
  
”Why wouldn’t they?” Hisoka snapped. “They summoned every shinigami in Japan for this meeting-- they obviously think it’s important.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed. “So if they’ve got all of them, what do they need one more for?” Hisoka didn’t deign to answer that. “You didn’t have to look very hard, did you?”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “I always know where to find you.” Tsuzuki half-smiled at that, and Hisoka noticed just how much turmoil there was underneath the surface-level chagrin. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Sure,” Tsuzuki said. “This is just going to be so boring, don’t you think? Everybody’s going to have something to say, and they’re going to take their time saying it. We’ll miss lunch.”   
  
All right, Hisoka thought, don’t tell me. He’d find out eventually. If nothing else, Tsuzuki would dream it and wake him up. “Then we’ll have to have a big dinner,” he said, experimenting with distraction.  
  
It worked. Tsuzuki brightened. “Are you making yakinuki?”  
  
“I said I was,” Hisoka said, climbing the stairs out of the basement level.   
  
Tsuzuki grinned. “Wonderful,” he said. Mischief sparked in the back of his mind. “And the eating should be pretty good after dinner too...”   
  
“Tsuzuki!” Hisoka snapped, wondering how it was that he could be moaning orders unabashedly just twelve hours ago, but was blushing scarlet now. “We’re in _public_ ,” he hissed, nearing the meeting room.  
  
“What?” Tsuzuki said innocently. “I like dessert. Everyone knows that...”   
  
Hisoka glared at him, wishing for a come-back. “ _Idiot,_ ” he hissed, at a loss, and opened the meeting-room door. Fine, he thought. That’ll teach me to try to distract you. Tsuzuki swept into the room, and Hisoka followed him.  
  
Like any crowded place, the room was a little overwhelming-- Hisoka counted sixteen other shinigami, with representatives from other bureaus filling out the table to something like thirty people, gods, and other beings sitting around. They were all looking at the two of them. Tsuzuki smiled. “Sorry I was late, folks-- duty calls, you know...”  
  
“Sit down,” Konoe snapped, “you idiot.” He muttered apologies to the fustily bearded man sitting next to him, who looked unimpressed. Tsuzuki dropped into a seat next to Tatsumi, who passed him a thick handout of papers. “Right. Now that we’re all _here_ , let’s start this meeting.” He held up the handout. “As you should know from the memo, you’ve all been called here because of a disturbing trend the Enma-cho staff have discovered. That said, I’d like to hand the floor over to our network expert, Watari Yutaka-san.”  
  
“Thanks, Chief.” Watari stood. “Recently, we’ve been trying to make a computerized equivalent of the Kiseki to get some demographic information. We’re hoping to get even better at finding strange trends in deaths, even the subtle ones.” He dimmed the lights, turning on an overhead projector. “As you can see here, we’ve divided the newly dead by age and location...”  
  
Tsuzuki leaned forward on his hands, head resting on the table. Hisoka poked him in the side. _Pay attention!_ Annoyance flared-- quickly repressed, but it wasn’t something Hisoka normally felt from Tsuzuki, and he wondered again what was bothering his partner. Tsuzuki sat up, at any rate, though he immediately leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.   
  
There was a murmur and Hisoka felt dismay from a dozen directions at once. He replayed what Watari had just been saying. “Babies, Watari-san?”  
  
“Babies,” Watari confirmed. “None more than a week old. There have been twenty-nine so far.” The murmurs continued. Watari spoke over them and they died down. “Now, normally our cases are clustered around one area, with one supernatural cause in that location. These went under our radar because they seem to be scattered at random. If you look at this map...” he clicked the projector’s button and a map of Japan appeared on the screen, “you’ll see that there is no one location-- nor any visible pattern. These murders are taking place all over Japan, at a rate of about one per week.”  
  
“Is there any relation between these killings?” The speaker was a middle-aged woman whom Hisoka remembered as being in charge of Chuugoku. “How are they killed?”  
  
“Lots of ways,” Watari said, flipping more slides. “They’ve been drowned... stabbed... burned... eviscerated...” The room went collectively green, and Hisoka winced at particularly strong nausea coming from several different directions. Watari frowned and flipped past a few dozen slides to a calm black-and-white table of numbers and dates. “We found no relation in M.O.,, nor any relationship between the children’s families. In fact, we were at a loss until we looked at the dates.” He pointed to the table. “As you can see, each baby was born within twenty-four hours of the previous victim’s death.”   
  
There was another murmur. “Reincarnation,” muttered a man sitting across from Hisoka. “It must be.”  
  
Watari nodded. “Exactly. Which is why we’ve called in an expert from the Reincarnations division.” He brought the lights back up and sat down, waving to a man across the table. “Fukou-san?”  
  
Tsuzuki tensed. The man to whom Watari pointed sat up, swinging out of a laid-back posture that exactly mirrored Tsuzuki’s. He had brown hair, white at the temples, and a bright reddish-brown business suit which should have clashed horribly with the open black yukata he wore over it. “Should have clashed,” seemed like a good description of him in general, Hisoka thought as Fukou leaned forward in his seat to address the group. “Sure enough,” he said in a thick Hokkaido accent. “We checked it out, and those kids all have the same soul. We keep sending it out, and it keeps coming right on back to us.” He stretched, grinning at Watari. “Guess we’re damned lucky you folks noticed it, huh?”   
  
Hisoka blinked, both at the man’s overpowering sense of self and at the confusion of emotions coming from his partner. Tsuzuki was still staring at the ceiling, but he felt terribly aware of everything going on in the room, and Hisoka didn’t like the way he tensed to Fukou’s voice. “Fukou-san,” Konoe said, “where is that soul now?”  
  
Fukou grinned. “Dunno if I should tell you that, Konoe-kun. Souls’ locations are supposed to be kept confidential, y’know...”   
  
Oddly, the outrage following that statement came mostly from the men sitting beside Konoe, Hisoka noticed. The Chief seemed resigned. “Sir,” Tatsumi said sharply, “we must know the child’s location to keep it safe.”  
  
“Safe?” Fukou cocked his head. “What do you want to keep it safe for?” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more. “That bastard’s racked up some of the highest bad-karma scores I’ve seen in a long time. Seems to me that being impaled a few more times is just what it needs to work a little of that off.” Tsuzuki winced.   
  
“But it’s not what the mothers need,” Wakaba put in, hesitant but furious. “Don’t you think?”   
  
Fukou shrugged. “Dunno. Haven’t looked at their karma-scores.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed. “Fukou...” he put in, “come on. Leave them alone.”  
  
Fukou smirked, buffeting Hisoka with a wave of cheerful nostalgia. “Aw, Asato-kun, you don’t want to wreck my fun, do you? Thought you knew better...”   
  
“Putting that aside,” Konoe said, “you plan to tell us, Fukou, or you wouldn’t have come here in the first place.” He smiled a grandfatherly smile, eyes closed. “Spill it.”  
  
Fukou barked a laugh. “All right, you got me. He’s over in Shikoku.” He held up a page. “Who’s got that territory-- you can have his name and address.” A shinigami across the table put up a hand. Fukou grinned at him, quickly folding the piece of paper into an airplane and launching it across the table. “Catch, Tagami-kun!” The shinigami caught it out of the air, glaring. Fukou shrugged. “We’ll mark it this time when it comes back, if you want, so we can keep telling you where it goes.”  
  
“That won’t be necessary, Fukou- _san_ ,” the Shikoku shinigami snapped. “We can do a perfectly good job of keeping--” he looked down at the page “Sachiko-chan safe.” He snapped his attention to the department heads at the end of the table, almost saluting. “You can depend on us, sir.”  
  
“Of course, Tagami-san,” one of the men sitting next to Konoe said. “We’ll leave it up to you, then, to watch over the baby and apprehend the killer.”  
  
“Everyone else,” Konoe said, “will provide Tagami-san and his partner with back-up by investigating the deaths that took place in your territory. Watari-san, you have the list of victims and their families?”  
  
“On the print-outs, Chief,” Watari said. “They’re all marked by district.”   
  
Hisoka put up a hand. “Chief Konoe, how is the killer tracking the babies’ soul? He-- or she-- must have a way of knowing where that soul is reborn. How?”  
  
“Exactly what I’ve been wondering,” Watari said, eyes lighting. “Could be anything. Spell-- hacking the Reincarnation Division’s computers--”  
  
“Hey, hey!” Fukou objected. “Don’t talk like we just leave our computers out for anyone to go through. We’ve got spells all over those things. We’d know if someone was in there without permission.”   
  
“Hm,” Watari said equably. “I guess we’ll have to keep investigating that.” Fukou raised an eyebrow at him.   
  
“Right,” Konoe said. “If there are no other questions...” The other shinigami, feeling shaken and determined, shook their heads. “Well, you’ve all got your assignments. Get going! There’s a killer out there!”  
  
“There’s always a killer out there,” an elaborately-feathered woman to Hisoka’s right muttered as she rose to leave. “Lucky us.” On Hisoka’s left, Tsuzuki breathed out a short, bitter laugh.  
  
“Tsuzuki?” Hisoka said.   
  
Tsuzuki shook his head, leaning forward again. “Never mind,” he said. “Come on, let’s go look at this.” He pushed his chair back, starting to rise.  
  
He didn’t make it to the door. “Asato-kun!” called a harsh voice. Tsuzuki turned just in time to face Fukou before the shorter man was wrapping him in a bear hug. “How the hell have you been all this time?”  
  
Tsuzuki laughed, uncomfortable. “Fukou,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”  
  
“No shit,” Fukou said, laughing. “Boy, I can’t believe you’re still _here_ ,” he said, disengaging, but still keeping a hand on Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “What’s it been, sixty years? You look good,” and there were hints behind the tone that said he didn’t mean health-wise. Hisoka twitched. “What have you been doing with yourself?”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “Same as always,” he said. “Ah... Fukou, this is my partner. Hisoka.”   
  
“Right,” Fukou said, turning to shake Hisoka’s hand. Hisoka, who had been intending to keep to a small bow, found himself frozen, trying to keep from being overwhelmed by the other man’s rollicking perceptions. “Bet you’re keeping him out of trouble, huh? You’re a serious one, _’sou ka_.”   
  
Hisoka had never liked that pun.* “You two know each other.”  
  
Fukou laughed. “You could say that,” he said. “Asato-kun, it’s been a dog’s-age,” and that amused him, too. “Want to go get a drink after this? or maybe ten?” He grinned at Hisoka. “They still call him the Boa-Constrictor, right?”  
  
Hisoka did not grin back. “What?”  
  
“Well,” Tsuzuki said, trying to laugh, “because I can hold my drinks so well.” Friendly, Hisoka felt, his partner was trying so hard to be friendly.  
  
Fukou seemed to buy it. “So? There’s drinks calling your name out there. Can’t you hear them?”   
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “I hear them. But I can’t today, Fukou. Maybe some other time.”  
  
“What, you’re working?” Fukou snorted. “Come on, Asato-kun-- what did I always tell you? You can’t take this job too seriously. It’ll kill you.”   
  
A flash of rage sparked through Tsuzuki, so fast that Hisoka didn’t think he even noticed it. “You’re right,” he said, smiling. “I keep telling people that, but they never listen.”   
  
Fukou sighed. “You can’t worry about what people _say_ ,” he said. “But come on-- what’s the worst thing they can do? Just ditch it-- who’ll notice?”  
  
“He’s busy,” Hisoka said firmly. “It was nice to meet you, Fukou-san.”   
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Fukou said. “Ditto, I’m sure. You want to come for a drink, then, ‘souka?”   
  
He meant it, Hisoka realized. He still shook his head, though, knowing he looked as cold as he ever had. “Thanks. No.”  
  
“Ah, well,” Fukou shrugged. “Guess I’ll see you next century, Asato-kun. You take care of yourself, huh?” There was a twinge of concern somewhere in there, Hisoka felt, but Fukou swaggered out of the room before he could track it down. The door slammed shut behind him, and Hisoka could hear him start to sing as he went down the corridor.  
  
Tsuzuki let out a long breath. “Well,” he said, putting on composure like he’d put on his trench-coat, “he hasn’t changed.” He shook his head. “Come on, let’s go investigate this.”  
  
Hisoka wasn’t ready to let it go that easily. “How did you know him?” he asked.  
  
“Who,” Tsuzuki said, heading out the door, “Fukou? He was my first partner.”   
  
Oh, Hisoka thought. That explains a lot. Tsuzuki didn’t want to talk about it, he could probably have told that even without empathy. And for himself-- he supposed there wasn’t anything else he actually needed to know. “What do you think about the case?”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed measured relief, moving from one piece of unpleasantness to another. “It stinks,” he said. Hisoka made an inquiring noise. “Someone’s very angry at that soul. Those deaths were too cruel to have been impersonal.” He stared off into the distance, seeing afterimages of the slides. “They weren’t just killed. They were tortured.”  
  
Hisoka scowled. “Too sloppy, too,” he said, trying to keep from getting too emotional about it. This was work, after all. “The tracking might be methodical-- and the murders are planned well, if there isn’t an outcry over this all over the television and newspapers. But the deaths looked very spur-of-the-moment. The blood spattered all over the place, and it looked like the victims struggled. As much as they could.” He wasn’t managing to stay unemotional, he noticed abstractly.   
  
Neither was Tsuzuki, of course-- but then, he never tried. “It’s horrible,” he said. “Whatever that soul did in the past-- doesn’t it deserve another chance? To keep torturing it like this... it’s unforgivable.” He clenched the file in his hand. “Come on, Hisoka. Let’s go find out what we can.”   
  
Hisoka nodded. “There were two of them in our territory,” Hisoka said, looking at a sheaf of print-outs. “Yoshihara Seishirou and... one who never had a name.”   
  
“Never had a name?”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “We have her mother’s name, though.”   
  
“All right,” Tsuzuki said. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Japanese phrase “sou ka” means, more or less, “I see,” “ah,” “that’s how it is,” etc. The ou sound is longer than the o in Hisoka’s name, but it’s close enough that “souka” makes a reasonable pun on the name. When Fukou calls him ‘souka, or says some variation on “that’s so,” he’s making that pun.
> 
> Yakinuki is Japanese-style Korean barbecue, made with meat and vegetables. Tsuzuki is quite right to be excited about it.


	3. Chapter Two

The first interview was just as horrible as Hisoka could have expected. Yoshihara Noriko was a young housewife, living in an apartment which seemed to be trying hard for coziness, but had only managed ‘very small.’ At the moment, the place looked as unkempt as the woman living there. She let them in passively when Tsuzuki told her that they were here to investigate her son’s death, voice barely above a whisper when she invited them to sit down and offered them tea. Tsuzuki accepted, and she fled into the kitchen, stifling tears.  
  
Hisoka stood, looking around. Every spare inch of wall was covered by paintings-- bright things, a little too sentimental to suit his taste. One of them featured a baby, flying on soft white wings. Tsuzuki’s jaw clenched when it caught his eye. He switched to a soft smile when Noriko came back into the room with the tea. “Thank-you,” he said.  
  
She nodded, bowing. “You-- you’re going to find out who--”   
  
“We’re going to find the killer,” Tsuzuki said firmly. “We’re going to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” She nodded again, her face hidden by her hair. “Can you tell us anything that you didn’t remember to tell the other policemen?” She shook her head, and Hisoka felt a spike of guilty fear. “All right,” Tsuzuki said, gentle-voiced, “let’s just go over it again.”   
  
Noriko nodded, speaking softly. “I... I was home, by myself. It was about three o’clock, so... so my husband was still at work. And my baby was asleep, so I was-- I was in the living room. And I heard a noise, from the bedroom, so I... I went to investigate. And then I don’t remember anything else, but... but when I woke up...” The tears fell and she put her head in her hands, sobbing.  
  
Tsuzuki handed her a handkerchief. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly. She sobbed harder.  
  
 _He’s lying,_ Hisoka caught from somewhere. He concentrated. No-- she thinks he’s lying. She is. “Yoshihara-san,” he said, after Tsuzuki had handed her her tea-cup and she’d gotten some control over herself. “What were you doing in the living room before you heard the sound?”  
  
“I...” she started. “I was... I was sketching,” and he could barely keep from shaking from the guilt around that. “I... I knew I wouldn’t have time to paint now, but I couldn’t stop just sketching, just a little bit...”   
  
“You’re an artist?” Tsuzuki asked. “That’s wonderful.”  
  
She shook her head. “I just-- I haven’t really sold many paintings,” she said. “It’s just a hobby. Mostly for me, I guess.”   
  
Hisoka glanced at the wall. “Did you do these?”   
  
She nodded. “Yes. That was the last one,” pointing to the baby. “I did it before... before my baby was born, expecting him. But they’re not important,” she put in quickly, speaking a low, urgent monotone. “They don’t matter.”   
  
Hisoka frowned. She was lying again. “You wouldn’t have time to paint now?” he asked.  
  
“Because of the baby,” she said, face down. “Time to give these things up and be responsible, now. It’s enough of a job to be a good mother, isn’t it?”   
  
No, Hisoka thought. At least, she doesn’t think it is. “Yoshihara-san,” he said, “how long did it take you to go into the bedroom when you heard the noise?”   
  
Tsuzuki looked puzzled, then dismayed. “Right away!” Noriko said, looking up. “I went right-- “ she met his eyes and faltered, “right in. As-- as soon as I-- I...” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m...”   
  
“Noriko-san,” Tsuzuki said, “you can tell us.” He couldn’t have felt her flash of terror the way Hisoka did, but he seemed to get it somehow.   
  
Noriko shook her head. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
“Of course not,” Tsuzuki said, quietly confident. “But we need to know what you did do, Noriko-san. We can’t solve this without your help.”  
  
“I told you,” she said, arms crossed tight around her chest, hair covering her face, “I didn’t. Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”  
  
“It’s all right,” Tsuzuki assured her. “You won’t get in trouble. I promise.”   
  
Hisoka tapped his shoulder, a signal that this wasn’t getting them anywhere. Noriko was locked up tight, he thought, they weren’t going to learn anything else from her. “Tsuzuki. We should go.”  
  
Tsuzuki turned, biting his lip, and Hisoka realized what was going through his mind. He sighed. “Tsuzuki, not _again_...”  
  
“We have to,” Tsuzuki said in an undertone. “You won’t tell the Chief, will you?”  
  
“He’ll find out anyway!” Hisoka snapped-- but Noriko’s anxiety had eased a little now that Tsuzuki’s attention was off her, and Hisoka found his own irritation calming slightly.   
  
“Come on, Hisoka...”  
  
Hisoka stepped away, shrugging. “Fine. Go ahead.”   
  
Tsuzuki turned back to the young woman, all professional again. “Noriko-san,” he said, “We’re not really from the police.”   
  
Her fear flipped into anger. “What?”  
  
“We’re shinigami,” Tsuzuki said.   
  
“Shi--” She jerked away, hands held up in front of her.   
  
Tsuzuki hurried to reassure her. “Don’t worry-- we’re not here for you.” She didn’t look any calmer. “It’s just... other babies have been killed, like Seishirou-chan, before their time. We’re trying to stop those killings.” He smiled. “I promise, if you can tell us anything, it will be a good deed.”   
  
“Shinigami,” she said shakily. She glanced at Hisoka, her suspicion confirmed. Hisoka supposed he did look a little young to be a police officer. She sobbed again. “You should take me. I deserve it, for what I did.”   
  
They said nothing, just let her talk. “I...” she said. “I didn’t go in, right away. And it wasn’t just a noise.”  
  
“What happened?” Tsuzuki asked softly.  
  
“I,” she said, “I heard the window open, and I heard the ba-- I heard S-Seishirou cry. And I didn’t get up right away. I didn’t-- I didn’t want to.” She was staring at her hands. “I was sketching, and it was going well, and I hadn’t had a minute-- hadn’t had a minute to myself for-- for a week, not a week, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t face it, not one more time, not when I was... I thought, I’ll let him cry, let him... let him see how it feels, not to get what you want!” She seemed to have forgotten about them, Hisoka thought, seeing only her own story. “And then I-- I heard a voice.”  
  
“A voice?” Tsuzuki asked. “What did it sound like?”  
  
“A man’s voice,” Noriko said. “I can still hear it. It was... it was deep, and... and refined, sort of. Educated, I guess. And I remember what he said. He said, ‘Mama-san, aren’t you in the middle of something of your own?’ And I just... I just sat there. Because I was. And I wouldn’t get to do that again, not now... And he said, ‘Don’t trouble yourself. Relax,’ and I heard the baby cry, really cry, he was really crying, ‘and let me take care of this.’ And then I... I sat there. I just sat there. And then the baby screamed, and I jumped up and went to open the door, and there was nobody. He was gone.” She balled in on herself, face buried in her arms, keening sobs. “And he’s gone, and I deserve anything you do to me, I should be dragged off to Hell, because I let him go. I was selfish, I was so selfish, I let him go...”   
  
“Noriko-san,” Tsuzuki said, wanting easy words to comfort her, not having any to give. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t respond, just clung to herself.   
  
“It wasn’t a fair choice,” Hisoka said. “You didn’t choose for your son to be murdered.”   
  
“But he was,” Noriko sobbed. “Because of me. Because I didn’t want to be bothered. What kind of mother does that?”  
  
There really wasn’t an answer to that, Hisoka thought.   
  
“A human one,” Tsuzuki said. “Noriko-- you would have done something different if you had had time to think about it. Wouldn’t you?” His eyes were kind, and Hisoka couldn’t understand how he could look so gentle when his memories were storming like that. “If you had known what would happen, and you had time to make the choice-- would you have done the same thing?”  
  
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, I wouldn’t. I swear. Never.”  
  
“You didn’t know,” Tsuzuki said. “And it happened so fast.”  
  
She nodded. “Yes,” she said, sobbing again. “Just like that. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I... That’s why I...” She screamed into her knees. “Oh... I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry...”   
  
Tsuzuki brushed her hair from her face. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered. She threw herself into his arms. He bent his head to lean his cheek against her hair. “There’s nothing wrong with you for that,” he said. “You were weak, for one moment. You didn’t realize what would happen. It’s not your fault.”   
  
Hisoka watched them, feeling ill-at-ease, as if he had no right to be there. But she did cause it, he thought. She didn’t mean to, I suppose. But it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t felt like that. He looked away, to the painting of the baby cradled in its own wings. And now she has to live with that.   
  
“You need to forgive yourself,” Tsuzuki said. “Noriko, you need to let it go. Done is done.” She said nothing, but her sobs were quieting now. “You’ll do something different next time, won’t you?”   
  
“I,” she said. “No. I don’t think I should have children. I don’t think it’s fair to them.” Her voice trembled, but she had stopped crying. “I was wrong. I... I only had him because everyone expected me to. That’s not... that’s not loving, not really.” She sighed. “I was wrong.”   
  
Tsuzuki seemed taken aback. “All right,” he said, recovering. “So you know that, now.” He stroked her hair one last time. “So now you can go on.”  
  
She sat up, face set, resolved. “I,” she said. “Yes.”   
  
“Well,” Tsuzuki said. “Good.” He smiled at her, not one of his best smiles. “Thank you, Noriko-san.”   
  
“Thank- _you,_ ” she said. She met his eyes, almost smiling. “Thank-you.”   
  
Tsuzuki stood. “We’ll call you,” Hisoka said, “if we have any more questions.” She nodded. Tsuzuki thanked her for the tea, having to strain to meet her eyes, and they left.  
  
They walked in silence out of the apartment. “Tsuzuki?” Hisoka said, feeling the maelstrom from his partner. “Are you all right?”  
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go talk to the other one.”   
  
Hisoka nodded. “Kumamoto University Hospital,” he said. “The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.”   
  
The hospital was trying to be cheery, Hisoka thought, and that always made things worse. He remembered staring at stupid little yellow ducks just like these from his own hospital bed, wondering whether the nurses who tacked them up were just tasteless, or tactless as well. The last thing he’d needed, he thought, was one more reminder of the normal childhood he wasn’t having. This place was laid out differently, but it could have been that ward’s twin. The nurses had the same harried expressions, the potted plants looked just as lackluster. The brightly-colored little goddess in the shrine in the corner looked just as worn, as if she’d heard too many impossible pleas and grown weary of failing to answer them. I hate these places, Hisoka heard, and wasn’t sure whether it was his thought or Tsuzuki’s or just the resonance of the thought every visitor had coming off the elevator. “Room 718,” he said.   
  
“She’s not awake?” Tsuzuki asked, striding invisibly through the hall.  
  
Hisoka shook his head. They’d split up the background research-- Tsuzuki had looked into Noriko’s case, he’d gotten this one. “She had deep stab wounds in vital organs-- she’s been in a coma for two weeks. They’re not expecting her to live much longer.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Who is she?”   
  
“Tada Rie,” Hisoka said. “Fourteen years old. She ran away from home in Kohama nine months ago, though her parents didn’t report it for a month after she left. The police found her on the street after the attack-- they thought she’d dragged herself out of the basement where the attack took place. She fell unconscious soon after they brought her to the hospital.”  
  
“Poor kid,” Tsuzuki said. “She didn’t get any breaks, did she?”  
  
Hisoka shrugged, and opened the door to Room 718.  
  
She wasn’t beautiful, Hisoka thought. Her looks were plain at best, her nose a little too large, her eyes a little too small and too close together, so Hisoka couldn’t tell why his first impression was of loveliness. Something about the set of her mouth, he thought. It had a certain satisfaction. “We won’t be able to wake her,” he said.  
  
“Maybe not,” Tsuzuki said. “But that’s where the spell comes in.” He strode to the head of the bed. “Her spirit is still strong, even if her body isn’t. We should be able to call that out to talk to us.” He stood above the girl and put a gentle hand to her forehead, fuda in place. “Rie-chan,” he called. “Rie-chan, do you hear me?”  
  
The girl shivered, Hisoka thought, her outline glowing indistinct, then splitting into two. The ghostly outline sat up, stretching out of her body. “Oh,” she said. “That feels good.”  
  
Tsuzuki smiled. “Good,” he said. “Can you talk to us?”  
  
The outline nodded. “Okay,” she said, curiously. “Who are you?”  
  
Tsuzuki introduced them, though not their jobs. “We came to talk to you,” he said, “about what happened.” She looked blank. “Well,” Tsuzuki said, “what have you done since you left home?”  
  
Rie looked puzzled for a moment, then recited in a monotone. “I stayed with my friend,” she said. “And then my step-dad almost found me, so I left. So then I stayed under a bridge, and then I stayed with a monk, and then I stayed in a bus station. But they all wanted to send me back home. But Meiko-chan let me sleep in the basement of the convenience store, and she called the doctor when I was going to have the baby.” She frowned fiercely. “I guess maybe she didn’t know about him.”   
  
Not bright, Hisoka thought, watching her eyes. Unless she’s just traumatized by the attack-- but I don’t think so. This feels normal for her. She’s not upset, either, not really.   
  
“What didn’t she know about him?” Tsuzuki asked.   
  
“That he was evil,” she said promptly. “He wanted to take the baby.” She grimaced, wrapping her hands around her flat belly.   
  
“What did he want to do with the baby?” Tsuzuki asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” Rie said, “but I didn’t like it. He was creepy.” She shivered. “I didn’t let him, though. He helped me give birth okay, he brought injections so it didn’t hurt. I was scared, before, but then it was okay.” She smiled. “And then I held her, and she was little, and she was mine. Nothing was ever mine before.” She cradled the air, and Hisoka could almost see the baby’s outline between the shadows of her arms. “And I told her that she was okay, and that I’d always watch out for her. I never had someone to take care of before. I told her that nothing bad would ever happen to her.” She smiled, then frowned again. “He didn’t like that.”  
  
“The doctor?” Tsuzuki asked.  
  
She nodded. “When I said that, he got mad. He said that I couldn’t take care of her. That I was too young, and... and something else, that meant I was stupid. He said he’d better take her, and give her to somebody else.” The outlines of her arms tightened around the glow between them. “And I said no, and he grabbed her. And she cried.” She glared fiercely. “So I tried to grab her back, and he hit me. He hit me hard, and it hurt.” A memory shivered through her mind of other hurts, other attacks. “But I didn’t let him. I wouldn’t. I never had someone else to think about before.” The certainty was back and her face was alight with it. “I was always scared of getting hurt, before. I always said to people, ‘okay, you can do what you want, but don’t hurt me.’ But I wouldn’t let him hurt _her_. Never. She was different. She was more important than me. If it was just me, I would have laid down and cried if he hit me like that. But I wouldn’t let him take her.” She sat forward, ready to leap up. “I ran up and grabbed him, and told him he couldn’t take her away. And he hit me again. He picked up one of his doctor-knives, like he’d used to take her out of me, and he stabbed me. And he did that a lot, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to let him take her.” Her smile faded. “And I don’t remember, after that. What happened?”  
  
“You came here,” Tsuzuki said with an effort. “And you’ll see her again soon.”   
  
“He better not have her,” Rie said.   
  
“He doesn’t,” Tsuzuki said. “Not anymore.”  
  
Rie nodded. “Good,” she said, smiling again.  
  
All right, Hisoka thought, trying to focus on work. “Tada-san, can you tell us more about the doctor?”  
  
“He was creepy,” she said. “He smiled, but he didn’t mean it. I could tell. He got too mad. I don’t like it when people get mad like that-- all mad inside, but then you only know when they yell.”  
  
Hisoka nodded. “What else?”   
  
She thought about it. “He looked nice. He looked really nice, kind of... kind of handsome. But he wasn’t, really. He was all stuck-up, too. You could tell. And he wanted to be mean to her.”  
  
None of which was helpful. “What did he look like?”  
  
“Tall,” Rie said. “And his eyes were weird.” She frowned. “I didn’t like his laugh.”  
  
That still didn’t help. Hisoka hesitated, then reached out to take her limp hand, trying to filter through her memories to find his face.  
  
He went cold. No, he thought. Except that I should have known that. Of course I should have known that.   
  
“Hisoka?” Tsuzuki asked, reaching out to steady him.  
  
“Tada-san,” Hisoka said, “what was the doctor’s name?”  
  
“Um,” she said. “I’m not sure. It was... it was a sharp name. It started with an M...”


	4. Chapter Three

They were stumbling as they walked out of the hospital-- walked, not flew. I knew that, Hisoka thought. I knew he was still alive. I could feel him through the scars. He just... didn’t feel ready yet to see him again. For two years Muraki had been his recurring nightmare, but he’d spent the last eight months waking up. He wasn’t ready to go back to that half-dead terror-filled stupor, that constant looking over his shoulder. And Tsuzuki... Hisoka glanced at his partner, who was shambling, almost walking into walls. Tsuzuki just felt blank, and cold, so cold... “Not this time,” Hisoka said.   
  
Tsuzuki blinked. “What?”  
  
“Not this time,” Hisoka said. “He doesn’t get to play with us this time. I’m not going to let him. And neither are you.”   
  
Tsuzuki shook his head, arms going around himself. “But he’s killing again. He’s killing innocents again, just to get me back.”   
  
“So?” Hisoka spat, trying to hold onto anger. It might be a little heat against the chill that was settling on Tsuzuki, emptying his eyes... “We’ll stop him.”  
  
Tsuzuki covered his face with his hand. “Those poor children, all of them...” His voice was harsh. “I should have let him keep me. I should have killed him. I should have died...”  
  
“ _No,_ ” Hisoka almost shouted. “You shouldn’t. Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki!” His partner just shook his bowed head. “You stayed. You said you’d stay.” For me. Hisoka lunged forward, his hand clenching in Tsuzuki’s hair, pulling Tsuzuki’s hand away and dragging his head down to kiss him fiercely, furiously. Come back here, he thought against Tsuzuki’s mouth. I don’t care where you’ve gone-- get back here, back to me. Now!   
  
For a moment, Tsuzuki just stayed rigid, unresponsive. Then he sighed, his arm going around Hisoka. Hisoka held him as the kiss melted into soft affection, then pulled away. Tsuzuki looked down at him, a ghost of amusement in his eyes. “Hisoka... we’re in _public_.”   
  
Hisoka scowled. “We’re invisible,” he said. “No-one can see us, anyway.” He left his arm around Tsuzuki’s neck, not ready to let him go yet. “We’re going to win this time,” he said. “We’re immortal. He’s not.” I don’t think. I hope. “He can’t keep winning.”   
  
Tsuzuki didn’t believe him. “Hisoka...”  
  
“We are _not_ going to give up and let him have his way,” Hisoka said. “He-- he’d just go on and do the same thing to someone else. Only worse.” Tsuzuki shivered. “So we’re going to stop him.” Tsuzuki stayed still, his gaze somewhere far away. Hisoka shook the scruff of his neck. “Right?”  
  
“...right,” Tsuzuki said, focusing on Hisoka again. “Of course.”   
  
“Other people are in danger,” Hisoka said, pulling the Tsuzuki trump card.  
  
It worked. “You’re right,” Tsuzuki said. “We can’t abandon them.” He shook himself like a dog coming out of freezing water. “Okay. First we tell the other shinigami-- there should be someone watching over the next baby--”  
  
“Tagami-san is,” Hisoka put in.  
  
Tsuzuki blinked. “Really?”  
  
Hisoka sighed. “You weren’t listening at all, were you?” Tsuzuki shrugged. “We should warn him about Muraki-- did you finish your report from Kyoto yet?”  
  
“Almost.”   
  
“Idiot.” The banter felt tacked-on, stretched too thin to cover them. “Just leave the last part off, then-- he’ll need the rest of the information. So will everyone.”   
  
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “And we need to find him. Look in his practice in Tokyo, his family mansion... we should have done this sooner. Damn it.”   
  
“So we’ll do it now,” Hisoka said. “Come on. Let’s get back to the office.”  
  
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. He glanced up at the hospital building behind them. Hisoka caught one feeling before they disappeared, a resigned _I’ll go through the motions, anyway. It won’t do any good, but I can’t not try.  
  
Can I?_  
  
No, Hisoka thought, phasing through worlds. You can’t not. Not and still be you. He swore under his breath. He said nothing, though, when they got back. It was well after five and the building was mostly empty, with only a few lights on here and there. He and Tsuzuki went to their desks and started digging up old case files and reports, reading names Hisoka had hoped to spend eternity without hearing again. He set to work making photocopies, preparing packets of information to send to the other shinigami. Tsuzuki sat down at his desk, presumably doing the same thing. When Hisoka came back with stacks of paper, though, his partner was still staring at his hands. “Tsuzuki!”   
  
“Huh?” Tsuzuki looked up. “Oh.” He smiled sheepishly. “Are you done with the copy machine?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said. It wasn’t in the least what he wanted to say. Tsuzuki was... was going through the motions. How could he tell him to do more than that? But Hisoka frowned, watching him go. He’s not here, he thought. He doesn’t want to be here, and he’s not, not really. And I don’t blame him, not when there’s so much horror here-- but I can’t go where he is. And I don’t know how to call him back. He watched Tsuzuki lean over the photocopier, staring past it out the window. On an impulse, Hisoka stood up and went to him, wrapping his arms around him from behind.  
  
Tsuzuki started. “Hisoka?”  
  
“What?” Hisoka said, as if he did this all the time. Which he did, when they weren’t in the office. His arms tightened around Tsuzuki, his hands spread wide across his partner’s chest. He pressed up against Tsuzuki’s back, trying to wrap the larger man up tight.  
  
“Mm,” Tsuzuki said. “Nothing.” He relaxed into Hisoka’s grip slowly, much less than he usually did. Hisoka leaned his face against Tsuzuki’s back, staring off at the dim turquoise wall beyond his shoulder. Stay with me, he thought. Stay with me stay with me stay...   
  
“I’m sorry,” Tsuzuki said. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this again, Hisoka. It’s not fair.”  
  
Which ‘this’? Hisoka wondered. Muraki, or you? “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s part of the job.”  
  
“Mm,” Tsuzuki said. He sighed. The photocopier clunked into stillness. “You hungry?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said. It was probably too late to cook, but they could order take-out...  
  
“Me, too,” Tsuzuki said. “Let’s get out of here.”  
  
“Right,” Hisoka said. He put the copies on Tatsumi’s desk with a neatly-written note and grabbed his jacket, wishing they could leave everything of the day behind as easily.   
  
Tsuzuki perked up a little when they had eaten, as usual. He was energetic enough to thoroughly and enthusiastically critique the food, anyway, and to try to wrestle the last bites off of Hisoka’s plate. But he clung that night when they went to bed together, battering himself against Hisoka’s hands as if he could thrust consciousness out of him, too. He woke them with nightmares so many times that eventually they gave up on sleep, just holding each other and waiting for the morning.  
  
Morning, surprisingly, was better. Hisoka slipped out early as usual to go back to his apartment to shower and change. Tsuzuki, finally fallen into a drowse, stirred softly, but didn’t call him back, and Hisoka didn’t try to wake him. Both his alarm clocks are set, he thought. I’ll see him at work, anyway. I don’t need to deal with it now. Not that he knew how to ‘deal’ with the look in Tsuzuki’s eyes as he mourned his own existence, anyway.   
  
It turned out that he didn’t have to. When he got to the office, Tsuzuki was there already, grinning at him. “Morning, Hisoka!”  
  
“Morning,” Hisoka said, startled at the apparent high spirits. He wasn’t sure how deep they went, but he didn’t want to probe just now to find out. He looked around. “Is Tatsumi here?”  
  
“Got here early, of course,” Tsuzuki said casually. “Doesn’t he always? He’s talking to the Chief.” A twist of awkwardness, there, and Hisoka wondered how the secretary had reacted to the news. “Kurimanju?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Tsuzuki held up a plate. “From Yin-san’s niece,” he said. “They’re pretty good. Not too sweet for you.”   
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “Thanks.” Although, he realized, he would so much rather talk about pastries than about Muraki. He could think of very little he _wouldn’t_ rather talk about than Muraki. “You look better this morning.”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “Ah, well,” he said, and Hisoka hated his own awkwardness. He shouldn’t have said anything, he realized. Damn. “It’s a pretty morning, you know? And hey, where there’s life, there’s hope.” He winked. “And the kurimanju are really good.”  
  
Hisoka sighed. If nothing else, Tsuzuki was so... Tsuzuki. Fortunately.  
  
He looked up, unsurprised, as Tatsumi entered-- he could have sensed the tightly-held fury from a mile away. “Kurosaki-kun,” Tatsumi said. “Good morning.” He fixed serious eyes on both of them. “Did you sleep well?”  
  
“Yes. Thank-you.”  
  
Tatsumi nodded. “I got your files, of course,” he said. “This is... unfortunate. I had hoped we were finished with the Kyoto case.”   
  
“Mm,” Tsuzuki said. “Can’t be helped, I guess.”   
  
“Ah,” Tatsumi said. “We’ve alerted the other shinigami to the situation, and told them how dangerous it may be. And the Chief has authorized me to give you two back-up.” He smiled a fierce, contained smile. “I’ll be coming with you when you go into the field, if I may.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed, tension shifting from one cause to another. “Thanks, Tatsumi-san,” Hisoka said. Whatever Tsuzuki might be feeling about it, he wanted the help. They’d need it.   
  
“Of course.” Tatsumi’s eyes flicked to Tsuzuki. “There’s no need for you two to face that again by yourselves.” Tsuzuki shrugged. Tatsumi went on. “I investigated Muraki’s whereabouts after the incident last fall. I was unable to locate him then, either at his practice, the university or in his family home. We’d be better off talking again to people who might know him.”  
  
Hisoka nodded. “Kokakou Rou.”   
  
Tsuzuki blinked at them. “What?”   
  
“It’s an inn,” Hisoka said. “There’s a friend of Muraki’s who runs it. When we went to get you back, that time, we went there. He helped us.” If ‘help’ was the word for it.  
  
“Ah,” Tsuzuki said. “Sounds good. What’s his name?”  
  
“Mibu Oriya,” Hisoka said. It had been months, and he’d only heard the man’s name once, on one of the worst days of his life. He hadn’t forgotten it.   
  
“All right,” Tsuzuki said. He stood up, stretching, the tension returning as soon as he eased it out. “Let’s go.”  
  
Hisoka and Tatsumi followed him, not meeting each other’s eyes.   
  
Kokakou Rou looked much like it had eight months ago. Hisoka thought that it was meant to look as if it had looked this way for centuries . He paused at the gate, memories flooding back. He’d been in such a panic that day, such a fury of action. Now... he looked at the red lantern above the door, at the stretch limousines pulling up in the street behind them. Tsuzuki just strode in.  
  
A burly man with a tattooed face stepped in front of them. “This is a private club.”   
  
Tsuzuki smiled, looking charming and dumb. “Of course. We’re here to see the owner.” He looked hopeful. “Is Mibu-san here?”  
  
The bouncer thought about it, then crossed his arms. “Not for you.”  
  
“Don’t bother, Qi,” said a drawling voice. “They’ll come in whether we let them or not. No point in wasting energy.” Hisoka looked up at the man lounging in the open doorway. He looked the same, too-- flowing hair and draping kimono, the comfort of which couldn’t manage to make him look weak. Like a lazing tiger, Hisoka thought. Nothing about the calm hides the fangs. Oriya frowned out at them. “He’s dead, shinigami. There’s nothing for you here.”  
  
“I’m afraid that’s not the case,” Tatsumi said. “May we come in?”  
  
Oriya contemplated them for a long moment. “Why not?” he said, bowing them in with ironic politeness. He signaled one of the maids to bring tea and led them out into the garden.  
  
Hisoka looked around the tranquil place. It looked smaller than it had. Cherry blossoms, he noticed with a residual shiver, squelched with the ease of long practice. Oriya wasn’t happy to see them, he thought, but he wasn’t overwhelmed by the feeling. The anger and grief resparked by their appearance were soft, as if he’d sat with the feelings long, fading them to ghosts. He doesn’t hate us, Hisoka thought. How odd.  
  
Oriya sat on a flat stone. Tsuzuki perched on a stone across from him, and Hisoka looked up to see that he and Tatsumi had taken up position flanking Tsuzuki, standing with identical crossed-armed watchfulness. Oriya took it all in, a ripple of amusement crossing the deeps. “So,” he said to Tsuzuki, “you’re the one all the fuss was about, huh?”   
  
Tsuzuki started. “Me?” he said. “No, not really...”  
  
“You’re the one Muraki was in love with,” Oriya said, resting his elbow on his knee. “I guess that would bring some chaos to anyone’s life.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s fist clenched. “That wasn’t love,” he said.   
  
Oriya shrugged, hazel eyes watching Tsuzuki. “He was a complicated man,” he said.  
  
“’Was,’ Mibu-san?” Tatsumi asked. Oriya turned to him. Tatsumi pushed up his glasses. “We have reason to believe that Muraki is still alive.”  
  
Oriya’s lip curled, and Hisoka winced at the twinge of dreadful hope. “I don’t,” he said. “What makes you think that?”  
  
“Murders,” Hisoka said. Oriya met his eye for the first time, and spared him a small smile. Hisoka swallowed.  
  
“Twenty-nine babies have been murdered since we left here,” Tatsumi said. “A witness identified Muraki as the attacker.” Hisoka felt Tatsumi’s cold rage biting through his voice, ready to strike. “You knew nothing about this?”  
  
Oriya shook his head. “Babies, now? Ch.” His doubts grew as they spoke, as he watched their faces and stances, and Hisoka could feel the winds of his emotion starting to rise.   
  
“He’s killing one soul,” Tsuzuki said. “Over and over again. Do you know why?”  
  
Yes, Hisoka thought, Oriya’s eyes widening as realization hit. “I couldn’t say.”  
  
“Mibu-san,” Hisoka said, “we need to know.” No good, he realized-- he could feel the rock of new resolution forming.   
  
“Do you?” Oriya said. “Sorry. I can’t help you.”  
  
Can’t, or won’t? Hisoka thought. “He’s killing innocents,” Tsuzuki said. “I won’t let that go on.”  
  
Oriya leaned back. “You believe in innocence?”  
  
“Yes,” Tsuzuki said immediately. “Of course. What do you mean?”  
  
Oriya sighed.   
  
“That isn’t relevant to this matter,” Tatsumi said. “We can’t allow Muraki to interfere in the cycles of death and rebirth like this. The consequences could be very serious.” Blue eyes glinted. “For everyone.”   
  
Oriya ran a hand through his hair. “I helped you last time because you deserved the chance,” he said. “And you took it. But I won’t do your job for you, shinigami.” He settled back on his stone. The water-clock tocked. “That’s all.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s frustration flickered, flared up. “That’s not all,” he spat. “How can you just sit there and let him do these things? If you don’t tell us what you know, people will _die_.”   
  
“People always die,” Oriya said. “They’re mortal. You’d know more about that than I would.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s shoulders set, terribly tense. “Muraki is a murderer.”  
  
“So he is,” Oriya said. “I guess you’d better go catch him, then.”  
  
Tsuzuki was out of his seat in a flash, so fast that Oriya couldn’t dodge quickly enough to evade him completely. There was a ripping of silk, and Tsuzuki stood, clenching Oriya’s sleeve. “ _Is_ ,” Tsuzuki said. “You said ‘is.’ You _know_ he’s alive.”  
  
“Of course I do,” Oriya said, his bare arm within easy reach of the sword at his belt. “You just told me.” Tsuzuki choked. Oriya stepped backwards, eyes wary. Hisoka started forward, then hesitated, not sure whom to help. It’s not like Tsuzuki to be that violent, he thought. Not with someone who hasn’t done anything. He’s not all right.  
  
Oriya caught Hisoka’s eye and relaxed his stance, holding his hands out to the sides. “He’s a hard man to deal with,” he said. “I was his friend for almost twenty years-- I understand that. He’s not easy.” His eyes held Tsuzuki’s, clear and rueful. “I’m sorry for what he did to you, whatever it was.”  
  
Tsuzuki was breathing hard, his voice catching. “Just tell me how to find him.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Oriya said. “I haven’t heard anything from him since that night.” He lowered his hands. “If he is still alive, he’s decided to leave me out of his affairs, I suppose.”  
  
“You know something,” Tsuzuki insisted. Tatsumi stepped forward, concerned. “We’re not going to just let you go when you _know_...”  
  
Hisoka shook, rage flooding past his boundaries, swamping him as it hadn’t in years. “Tsuzuki--”  
  
A casting circle started to form around Tsuzuki, the rage focusing its burn, scorching Hisoka’s eyes from inside. “Tell us where to find him. Tell us, or...”  
  
“ _Tsuzuki!_ ”  
  
It took a long time for Tsuzuki to turn, that’s what made Hisoka the sickest. It took a very long moment before he looked behind him to notice his partner shaking, fallen to his knees, arms wrapped around himself. “Hisoka!”  
  
Concern was easier to take in. Hisoka managed to slow his breathing. “He doesn’t know,” Hisoka said, voice low and determined. “He was telling the truth. He didn’t know Muraki’s alive, and he doesn’t know where he is now.”  
  
Tsuzuki was staring at Hisoka, stricken. “Are you sure, Kurosaki-kun?” Tatsumi asked.  
  
Hisoka nodded. “He has a guess,” he said, raising his head to meet Oriya’s impassive face. “But he isn’t sure. And he won’t tell us what it is.” Oriya tipped his head, an amused, wary acknowledgment. Hisoka hoped no-one would suggest torture.  
  
No-one did. “Very well,” Tatsumi said. “Then our business here is finished. We won’t take up any more of your time.” He nodded precisely to Oriya and put a hand on Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “Tsuzuki-san?”   
  
Tsuzuki jumped, drawn back to reality. He put a hand toward Hisoka, then pulled it back. “Hisoka... are you all right?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Hisoka said, hating the look in his partner’s eyes, the roil of his feelings. He’s not, he thought. He’s not all right at all. “Let’s just go.”  
  
“Kid,” Oriya called as they turned to leave. They stopped. “Whose soul is it?”  
  
“We don’t know,” Hisoka said.  
  
Oriya’s eyes gave away little, his feelings less-- shades and fogs. “Maybe you should find out.”  
  
Hisoka nodded. “Thanks.”  
  
“Ch.” Oriya sat back on his stone, pulling out a long-stemmed pipe, and said nothing until the shinigami had faded from sight.  
  
Tsuzuki was smoldering when they got back to Meifu, his fury banked down to thick, choking black resignation. “So much for that. I’m sorry...” He slumped miserably against his desk. “I didn’t mean to-- Hisoka, I’m sorry.”   
  
Hisoka stood beside him, wanting to reach out-- put his head on Tsuzuki’s shoulder, wrap his arms around him. They were at work. He sat down at his own desk. “It’s fine. We have something to go on, now.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s shoulder twitched in a shrug. “Mm.” He blew out his breath, idly playing with a stapler.  
  
Hisoka clenched his fist. “We’ll talk to other people who knew him,” he said. “Coworkers. His neighbors. Security guards at the University. They might have seen him leave.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed, infinitely weary. “Tatsumi said he already did that.”  
  
Hisoka grabbed his hand, insistent. “We’ll find him,” he said. “We’ll stop him. We won’t let him kill again.”  
  
There was a delicate cough behind him. Hisoka yanked his hand back to his own lap. “That won’t be possible, Kurosaki-kun,” Tatsumi said heavily. He held up a memo. “A thirtieth child has died.”  
  
The sorrow broke over Tsuzuki’s head like a wave, crashing him deeper into the darkness. Kindness can backfire, Hisoka remembered himself saying, a long time ago. He’d had such clarity then. Not this tangle of feeling, where you don’t lie to be kind-- you lie because you can’t stand for the lie not to be true, can’t stand the other person’s pain if you’re wrong. But you are wrong, of course-- he’d known something back then. Not enough, then or now.  
  
Tsuzuki raised his head. “What about that guy,” he asked, “Tagami?”  
  
“Missing,” Tatsumi said. He pushed up his glasses, speaking with hard-won evenness. “His partner is searching for him, but she hasn’t seen him since he left here.”  
  
“Oh.” Tsuzuki sat up. “Muraki has him, then.” He stood, pushing back his chair. “Well, come on. Let’s go investigate.” Hisoka stared at him, wondering at the energy flowing through him. “What are you waiting for?”  
  
Hisoka half-smiled, startling Tatsumi. “You’re right,” he said, picking up the list of names and addresses from his desk. “Let’s go find him.”   
  
They didn’t.  
  
Tagami’s partner’s half-remembered sighting of a man in a white coat led them nowhere. Combing the area where she’d seen it brought only blank stares from neighbors and passersby. The murdered child’s mother was dead before they got there, her soul passed on too quickly to question. They had nothing but dead ends, piling up with the weeks and the bodies.  
  
After about three weeks, they got a memo that Enma had received Tagami’s soul-- again. He would not be returning to Juoh-cho.  
  
Hisoka couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt peace from Tsuzuki, and his partner’s forced laugh was starting to make him want to scream.


	5. Chapter Four

Date: May 15, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@shinigami.enma.net  
From: Fukou@reincarnation.enma.net  
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Consultation  
  
Soka--  
  
Sorry but the rules haven’t changed since the last 3 times you asked, I can’t tell you the history of all the souls lives. We’re already bending things into birdsnests to tell you who ijt is now. That hasn’t happened in 500 years and as I recall people got their tails bit off for them then so you can guess how much we’re not going to go further than that.  
  
Sorry to hear about Tagami but he is doing much better now than he was. Finally got rid of that stupid smirk for one thing.  
  
Give Asato-kun a squeeze for me.  
  
 _ **\--Fukou**_  
  
  
  
Date: May 15, 1999  
To: Fukou@reincarnation.enma.net  
From: kurosakihi@shinigami.enma.net  
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Consultation  
  
Fukou:   
  
Bite me.  
  
And keep your greasy paws off my damn partner.  
  
Regards,  
  
Kurosaki Hisoka   
  
  
Hisoka sighed and hit “delete.” He was surprised at himself for giving in to the impulse to type it at all-- it wouldn’t have done anything except cut off a possible source of help. They needed help. He glanced over at Tsuzuki, who was staring industriously out the window, his head resting on their latest case file. After a few futile weeks on the Muraki case, they’d all been told to go back to a normal caseload-- couldn’t have all the wandering souls in Japan neglected for the sake of a few babies, after all. Tsuzuki had taken the news noisily, but he’d been shouted down. Hisoka kept a running tally of Muraki’s victims as they went by. One child was taken the instant he was born. One died of a congenital heart defect-- not the Okinawa shinigami’s fault, but still a loss. One was taken past the guard of Terazuma, Wakaba, _and_ Tatsumi, and the secretary hadn’t looked Tsuzuki in the face since.   
  
Not that Tsuzuki seemed to notice, Hisoka thought. His partner alternated lately-- some weeks, he drove them hard, staying out all night, every night, trying to track down leads that vanished into the darkness, leaving only bloodstains behind. Other weeks he’d go vague, drifting through the day, letting cases and meals pass by with barely a comment. He kept his old smile tacked haphazardly on his face, as an afterthought. Only Hisoka’s constant pounding headache showed Tsuzuki’s dissolution, the fury ripping his mind apart from the inside as people died ( _for me, he’s killing them to get to me_ ) and he did nothing.   
  
“Tsuzuki,” he said. Tsuzuki sat up. “Have you got that form ready, yet?”  
  
Tsuzuki looked down at the blank page in front of him. “No.”  
  
“Idiot,” Hisoka scolded. “What’s taking you so long?”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged, turning back to the window. “Sorry.”   
  
Hisoka stared at him for a long, silent moment, watching the cherry blossoms outside drifting past his partner’s silhouette. Then he stood up and teleported into Chief Konoe’s office.  
  
Konoe frowned at him from behind a desk covered piled high enough in paperwork to almost block the photographs of his wife, children, and great-great-grandchildren from Hisoka’s view. Konoe’d been in this office for so long that it had started to feel like him-- basic, no-nonsense furniture, worn to perfect comfort. At the moment, he looked far from comfortable. “Kurosaki-kun?”  
  
“Chief,” Hisoka said, “send me to protect the soul that Muraki kills.”  
  
Konoe sighed. “We’ve been over this, Kurosaki-kun,” he said. Hisoka said nothing. “What do you think has changed since the last time I said no?”  
  
“Two more babies have died.”  
  
“Yes,” Konoe said. “Even though they were guarded by good, strong shinigami with years more experience than you have.”  
  
“With all respect, sir,” Hisoka said, “they don’t know Muraki.”  
  
“No,” Konoe agreed. “they don’t. You and Tsuzuki do, because you ran into him three times, and every one of those times he almost killed you. Not to mention that--”  
  
“Tsuzuki is losing his mind,” Hisoka said. “Again.”  
  
Konoe stopped mid-tirade, craggy face giving nothing away, spirits plummeting. “Yes,” he said. “Do you think that’s a reason to send him?”  
  
It was logical. It was perfectly logical. Hisoka didn’t care. “He can’t do this! He can’t stay here waiting while Muraki kills for him! You can’t ask him to sit by and do nothing--”  
  
“I’m not,” Konoe said. “I’m asking him to do his caseload, which he’s barely doing.” Hisoka crossed his arms. “We will handle this, Kurosaki-kun. You two need to do your jobs.”  
  
He doesn’t believe himself, Hisoka thought. But half the frustrated fear Hisoka was feeling had the timeworn undertones of Konoe’s emotions. And he was right. Everything he said made perfect sense. Hisoka nodded curtly, because it was that or start hurling spells, and left.  
  
I used to be a rational person, Hisoka thought, striding unseeing through corridors. I remember being a rational person. I did things because they were practical and sensible, and emotion just didn’t come into the decision-making process. I used to be stable.  
  
I hate this. I don’t want to be like this. I want to not care, again. It was so much easier when I didn’t care. Back when I didn’t know him, when I didn’t remember knowing Muraki. Not like now, when all I can think about is Tsuzuki, and what Muraki did to him, and what he’s trying to do now, and I’m scared for him all the damn time, and Muraki could be anywhere... There was a shadow in front of him, a tall shape in a long white coat. Hisoka jerked backwards, throwing his hands up to defend himself, shouting defiance.  
  
Watari raised his eyebrows. “Bad day?”   
  
“Watari-san,” Hisoka snapped. “You should watch where you’re going.”  
  
“Ah,” Watari said. “Bad day.”   
  
Hisoka glared. “I’m busy.”   
  
“Oh?” Watari said. He held up a printout. “Too busy to hear about how easy it is to hack the Reincarnation Division’s computers?”  
  
Hisoka gaped. “You got in?”  
  
Watari grinned. “Maybe some people shouldn’t have been so proud of the spells they’ve got up-- they’re awfully antiquated. I should have noticed that weeks ago.” He grinned, delighted with himself, his last few months’ frustration evaporated in a moment. “Once I figured that out, it was barely a challenge.” He tsked. “Seems like they’re not very good at staying up-to-date over there.”   
  
“But you found it,” Hisoka said. “You found out who the soul’s been?”  
  
Watari shook his head. “Afraid not. It looks like they haven’t gotten around to inputting all their old files-- or any of their old files. But I did find out the exact location the soul got sent the last time around-- and where it’s been for the past month.”  
  
Hisoka frowned. The most recent memo from Reincarnation had simply given the name and address of a woman whose name showed up on the Kiseki moments before the memo arrived. There was no sign of the baby in her empty hotel room, and her soul was gone before they could find it to ask questions. Reincarnation had refused to tell them anything else, simply saying that they would be updated when the soul returned. “Where?”  
  
“It’ll be easier to show you, I think,” Watari said. “You busy this afternoon?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Watari smiled. “So let’s go.”  
  
The building in front of them when they arrived on Earth had been modern, Hisoka thought, about thirty years ago. Now it was showing its age, the complex cement shapes covered with birds’ nests and weather-stains. Watari considered his list. “The fourth floor,” he said. Hisoka nodded and went invisible.   
  
Watari kept talking as they floated up beside the building. “The soul was only here for an hour or so,” he said, “but I’m curious about it. Why here? It’s just...” he opened a window and ducked inside, “an old commercial laboratory-- it’s been out of business for years.” Seeing that the halls were empty, Watari tried the door to the lab. Finding it locked, he frowned. Then he pulled a pen from his pocket and drew two vertical lines, starting at the floor and going up, crossed with a shaky horizontal at head height. He drew a rough circle near one of the verticals. Then he leaned a hand against the drawing, closing his eyes to concentrate. The wall rippled and a jagged door appeared, the misshapen doorknob nestled in Watari’s hand. “There we go!”  
  
Hisoka followed Watari through the doorway, careful not to bump into the rough edges. “Won’t someone notice a new door?”  
  
“It’s modern architecture,” Watari said. “How will they know the difference?”  
  
Hisoka nodded. “Watari-san, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I didn’t mean to be rude.”  
  
Watari shrugged, flicking on the lights. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’re on edge. Who isn’t, these days?” He looked around the room, glancing over wide tables, plastic chairs, empty glass-fronted display cases and filing cabinets. There was a faint smell in the room, rank and decaying. It seemed to center on the examining table at one end of the room, covered in dark stains. Hisoka walked over, trying to pick up the psychic residue. There wasn’t much there, the thing hadn’t been touched in weeks-- but it had been strongly touched, when it was. Hisoka closed his eyes.  
  
“Kid?” Watari called. “Found something?”  
  
 _It hurt, and it felt wrong, nothing should feel quite like this..._ Hisoka opened his eyes. Bloodstains, he realized with a shudder. Long-dried. “There’s something still here,” he said. “There was a powerful energy surge-- I can still feel it. I haven’t felt anything quite like this. It feels perverted.”  
  
Watari blinked. “Well, that sounds about right...”  
  
Hisoka glared. “Not sexually,” he said. “A very powerful event went very wrong. As if its purpose were twisted away, into something it shouldn’t have been.” He flushed slightly, disliking the hint of happily distracted voyeurism he was picking up. It’s none of your business whether I can use the word ‘sexually,’ he thought, and what right do you have to feel satisfied about it if I do? “Get your mind out of the gutter.”  
  
“Me?” Watari said cheerfully. “Never.” He turned his attention back to the room. “Did you get any details of what happened?”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “It’s too old. I wouldn’t be able to get anything at all if the spell hadn’t been so strong.” He closed his eyes again, trying to catch at the shadowy sensations, like remembering a dream on waking. “Birth and death,” he said. “He killed the mother here, I think-- right after the birth, or maybe while she was in labor.”  
  
Watari looked down at the scuffed floor of the lab. “There’s wax here,” he said. “And there, and there,” pointing to the four other pentacle-points making up a circle around the table. “Spell-casting.”  
  
Hisoka grimaced. “Yeah.”  
  
Watari frowned. “The rest of the room is clean, though. There’s nothing on the computer, nothing in the wastebaskets. The cabinets are all locked, but they’re dusty. I think we’ve gotten everything we can get from here.”  
  
“Right,” Hisoka said. “You said you knew where else the soul has been?”  
  
“Yeah,” Watari said slowly. “It was moving around for a while, but it’s been at an address just outside of Yokohama for the past month.” Serious amber eyes met Hisoka’s. “That’s probably where Muraki is, too.”  
  
Hisoka cleared his throat, trying very hard to sound calm. I’m immortal, he reminded himself. And pretty much unbreakable. And I am stronger than I was. But he wasn’t brave enough not to say, “We should get Tsuzuki.”   
  
Nor did Watari think he should be. “Of course,” he said. “Let’s go.”  
  
It seemed a terribly short time before they stood at the gate outside the small family house in the suburbs. Tsuzuki was tense, moving too fast, talking too loudly. One of the two of them, Hisoka thought, was terror-sick to be here, and one of them was furiously eager to see Muraki’s face again. He couldn’t tell which was which. Maybe both of them felt both. “He might know we’re here,” Hisoka said.  
  
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “And he must have warded the place and shielded it. So we go in directly.” He drew a fuda, ready to cast it.  
  
“Or not,” Watari said. He pointed to the windows, wide open in the hot June afternoon. “No point in explosions if we don’t need them, no?”  
  
This is where Tsuzuki would normally get indignant, Hisoka thought, or say something self-deprecating with an unconvincing half-laugh. Tsuzuki said, “We’ll need them soon.”   
  
“Could be,” Watari said, putting a hand to the open window-frame. He frowned as hints of purple sparked away from his hand, like a tesla coil on a run-down battery. “This isn’t much of a shield, though. The kid could break it easily.”  
  
Glaring, Hisoka stepped past Watari and did so, expecting something else to come down on his head any second now. Nothing did. The shield fizzled out of existence, leaving the window wide and clear. He looked over his shoulder at Tsuzuki.  
  
Tsuzuki steeled himself, and Hisoka could almost feel tatters of dissolution like ragged wings on his back. He leapt through the window, ready for the worst. Hisoka followed.  
  
“Looks like a rented room,” Watari said low-voiced, coming through the window after them. Hisoka agreed. The furniture was a perfectly efficient blend of traditional and western, done in beiges and blues which Hisoka couldn’t imagine anyone liking-- just what someone might think other people would find appropriate. Exactly right for someone else to live in. The living room was unlit, and he saw nothing there that seemed personal, nothing that made him think of Muraki.   
  
“The soul is still here, right?” Hisoka asked softly. He didn’t like the feel of the place. It was so empty, so lonely, so cold. He put his hands in his pockets, forcing them away from crossing over his chest.   
  
Watari nodded. “Unless it’s moved in the last two hours. That’s not likely, though-- it’s been here for a month.” He glanced around. “I think I see an office through there-- that’ll be where he keeps his records...”   
  
“Records?” Tsuzuki said aloud. “Who has time for that? We need to find the kid.” He strode through a doorway, vanishing from sight.  
  
Hisoka hurried after him, leaving Watari behind. “Tsuzuki!” He shouldn’t have called his name, he supposed, he shouldn’t give Muraki any more warning than he’d already had, but this place was terrifying. He wasn’t sure why. The undecorated walls around him shone a dingy white in the indirect afternoon sun, the perfectly neutral furniture gave away nothing but an impression of tired utilitarian anonymity, but he was shaking with fear. It’s not just knowing that Muraki is here somewhere, he thought, although that ( _blood, he was seeing blood everywhere, covered in Tsuzuki’s blood and he could see the ends of his spine through the gore_ ) doesn’t help. It’s more than that. This place felt unremittingly terrifying, terror without hope of release, as if terror were all that he’d ever known. It felt like just breathing was frightening, and he was so alone, and so cold, and he hurt...   
  
Not mine, Hisoka thought. That’s not mine. I know whose that is. “Tsuzuki,” he called, “it’s this way.”  
  
Tsuzuki reappeared in an instant. “Where?” He paused. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Fine,” Hisoka said through chattering teeth. “Let’s go.”  
  
Their feet thudded softly on the wooden stairway. “This way,” Hisoka said softly. “I don’t know where Muraki is. I can’t feel him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t here. Stay alert.”  
  
Tsuzuki almost laughed. All right, Hisoka thought, so that was useless advice. “We’ll manage,” Tsuzuki said. His head jerked up, and he started to run forward. A moment later, Hisoka heard what he’d heard-- crying, weak and exhausted. It wasn’t normal baby crying, a first attempt to communicate discomfort to someone who will hear and fix it. This was despairing, Hisoka thought, crying because that much misery couldn’t stay in a small body without overflowing somehow, but it wasn’t hoping for rescue. It was just crying. Hisoka pounded up the stairs after Tsuzuki.  
  
The nursery at the top of the stairs was perfect, Hisoka thought. There was none of the neutrality of the rest of the house-- this was cheerful pediatric wallpaper, rows of shining clean bottles, a perfectly arranged diaper table. The crib was sturdy and hospital-white, the blanket fleecy blue and tucked in at the corners. The drawn-faced baby, eyes closed and mouth working in soft whimpers, had a little yellow hat on its head, almost covering the jagged slash going down its face.   
  
Tsuzuki blew out his breath in appalled fury. “That _bastard,_ ” he hissed. He put his hands into the crib, reaching to pick the child up and cuddle it close.  
  
He didn’t get very far. At the touch of his hand, the baby screamed, an earsplitting shriek of panic. It screwed its eyes tightly shut, limbs twitching. Hisoka would almost think it were trying to get away, but it felt no hope of escape. It didn’t know what hope was. He wanted to be doing something helpful, but he could barely stand up, could barely keep from turning and running from the room. There was nothing in the world but fear. Nothing was real except pain. Nothing. “It’s scared,” he managed, “It’s terrified. It thinks you’ll hurt it again.”  
  
There was a twitch of guilt from Tsuzuki, but he stopped trying to touch the baby. The shrieking bled down to a whimper. “We’re not leaving him here,” Tsuzuki said. “We’re not leaving him here to be tortured.”  
  
“You are,” said the voice Hisoka would never forget, and now he couldn’t tell how much of the terror was the baby’s any more. He spun toward the doorway. He’d dreamed about this-- trapped in a room, him and Tsuzuki and Muraki, blood and panic. The doctor stood at ease, a bottle in his hand, head cocked to the side, silver eye calmly interested. “Do you think you have another choice?”  
  
“Muraki,” Tsuzuki snarled, darting in front of the baby, arms outstretched behind him to protect it. His fury was scorching against the cold fear, and Hisoka could almost shelter in it, if he didn’t mind being consumed.   
  
“Tsuzuki-san,” Muraki said, and Hisoka could not stand the simple, startled pleasure in his voice, like a man happening to meet an old acquaintance, perhaps out strolling in a park. He was wearing a cream-colored shirt, and he looked subtly wrong not in a suit. “I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon.”  
  
“Bastard!” Tsuzuki spat. “It’s me you want-- you had no right to make children suffer for that!”  
  
“You?” Muraki asked mildly. “Ah, no, Tsuzuki-san-- I no longer need you for my work.” He advanced across the room, and Hisoka had not thought he could have handled feeling one more emotion without exploding with it, but here it was. Tsuzuki was shaking because he could feel Muraki coming closer, could see Muraki’s hand reaching out to cup his cheek, and he could not move because he could not keep from wanting it. “Though of course you are always my pleasure...”  
  
Tsuzuki hesitated a long moment before striking Muraki’s hand away, glaring. “You were killing innocents again to draw me out,” he growled. “I’m here. You can let him go.”  
  
Muraki sighed, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “Captivating as you are,” he said, “not everything is about you, dear Tsuzuki-san.” He looked past Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “I don’t have time to fight right now, I’m afraid. If you’d like to come downstairs-- we were just about to have tea and milk.” He held up the bottle, smiling invitingly. The steel didn’t leave his voice, though, and Hisoka knew that if he felt deeper, he’d find a maelstrom. He tried not to feel deeper.   
  
“You’re not taking him anywhere,” Tsuzuki said, moving more firmly between Muraki and the baby.   
  
The annoyance showed more clearly in Muraki’s eyes. “It’s none of your affair.” Tsuzuki didn’t move. Hisoka wasn’t sure whether Muraki could see his partner’s faint trembling. “Doesn’t this strike you as a little rude? Barging in here, making threats, getting between me and my child... He’s hungry, you know.”  
  
“He’s got a cut going halfway down his face!” Tsuzuki was gripping the bars of the crib in his hands now, digging the wood into his palms.   
  
“Does he?” Muraki asked.   
  
Hisoka broke his staring stupor enough to glance over at the baby. Muraki was right. The pale skin was smooth, now, unmarked. Only the trace of blood on the little hat suggested there had ever been an injury there. Hisoka blinked. Wake up, dammit, he thought. Do something!  
  
“I won’t let you keep torturing him,” Tsuzuki said.  
  
“No?” Muraki asked, putting the bottle down on a table. “How will you prevent it?” Tsuzuki drew a fuda, though he had barely enough room to get his hand between him and Muraki, trapped between the taller man and the crib. Muraki’s eyes narrowed, and there was a rush of motion, too fast for Hisoka to see. At the end of it, though, Muraki held Tsuzuki in a grotesque embrace, reaching around to hold Tsuzuki’s arms behind his back, his legs between Tsuzuki’s, throwing him off balance. The fuda trembled in Tsuzuki’s hand, almost touching the face of the mewling child. Tsuzuki ground his teeth, bent backward, breathing hard, looking away, and the memories ( _cutting blood scalpel light pain arousal emptiness movement laughter pain_ ) shook him nearly as much as Muraki’s smirking face inches from his own.  
  
Do something, Hisoka thought. Now. Now! It was hard to start moving, but his arm flowed easily after he did, drawing the gun, cocking it, and pressing it to Muraki’s temple all in one smooth motion. “Let go of him,” he said, and his voice sounded surprisingly strong to him. “Now.”   
  
Muraki hissed annoyance. “I was talking to Tsuzuki-san, boy. Wait your turn.” Tsuzuki struggled, an intended growl coming out as a moan. His hand clenched around the fuda, crumpling it.   
  
Hisoka shoved the gun harder against Muraki’s head. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears. “I’ve got no reason at all not to blow your head off,” he said. “Muraki. Let him go.”   
  
Muraki turned to look at him, and the ( _silver eye_ ) glared at him ( _delightedly-- he’d found a new toy_ ) furiously. “Shinigami,” he spat, “this has nothing to do with you. This child is alive. He’s meant to be. You’ve got no jurisdiction here.”   
  
“We don’t need jurisdiction,” Hisoka growled. “Not after what you’ve done.”  
  
Muraki stared at him over the barrel of the gun, and Hisoka wanted nothing except to pull the trigger, to kill him, to kill him right now this instant. He could. He had no reason not to. It would be murder, but that hadn’t stopped Muraki... “He’s mine,” Muraki said. “My creation. As he was my destruction. You have no right to him, or to me.”   
  
“You,” Tsuzuki panted, “have no right to torture him, Muraki.”   
  
Muraki leaned in, hissing in Tsuzuki’s ear. “You’re so sure of that, Tsuzuki-san...” He forced Tsuzuki’s hand downwards until it brushed the baby’s chest. “I have always loved that certainty of yours, you know. It’s adorable.” Tsuzuki struggled, then winced as his fist knocked into the baby’s face, startling a cry out of it. He went limp. “You’re so fierce to defend the things you’re so utterly wrong about...” Muraki smiled, pressing Tsuzuki’s hand to the baby’s belly, then sliding it down the small body, ending between its legs, curling Tsuzuki’s fingers crushingly tight around its tiny genitals and Tsuzuki cried out as forsakenly as the child did...  
  
“Muraki!” Hisoka shouted, the gun shaking in his hand. Muraki started to move. “ _Enough,_ ” Hisoka spat, and pulled the trigger.  
  
The gunshot was deafening in the small room, followed by the baby’s shrieks, and there was a rush of motion and then Muraki had him pinned. Hisoka could feel the doctor behind him, could feel his breath on his neck, and couldn’t tell whether this was memory or reality. “Watch it, boy,” Muraki hissed, and this must be the present, because he had never made Muraki quite _this_ furious before. “I’m getting tired of your impertinence,” he said, and the gun was being wrenched out of his hand and he pulled the trigger again, blindly, and Muraki howled fury and pain behind him. Hisoka heard his arm snap in Muraki’s grip, his face was slammed into the changing table in front of him, and his struggling was useless as ever, and Tsuzuki was desperately shouting his name. Then he heard the sound of fuda being cast, and Muraki spun, shouting. “Shinigami!”  
  
“You rang?” Watari said from the doorway. Another fuda was ready in his hand, and he was panting, blood matted in his hair. “Guess it’s your lucky day. Three guardians, no waiting.”   
  
Muraki snarled, and Hisoka lost his footing, and then he was flying across the room, hitting Watari hard. They went down in a tangle of limbs and by the time Hisoka could raise his head, Muraki was behind the crib, reaching down. Tsuzuki pulled his charge up short, hesitating to attack Muraki when he held the child in his arms. Watari gasped. “The clone!”  
  
“Clone?” Hisoka echoed.  
  
Muraki smiled. “Didn’t you realize?” He tapped the baby’s forehead, and it stopped screaming. Then it blinked, staring up at them with wide, purple eyes.   
  
“It’s been wonderful to see you, Tsuzuki-san,” Muraki said, a column of light starting to form around him. “We must do this again some time.” Then he was gone.


	6. Chapter Five

Tsuzuki stared at the empty crib. Then he spun. _“Hisoka!”_  
  
Hisoka winced, trying not to move his screaming arm. “Watch it,” Watari said next to him. “That’s a bad break. Here...” Watari grabbed his arm deftly, and Hisoka stared down as his flesh re-knitted over the reconnecting ends of bones. I shot him, he thought. I shot him from less than a foot away. How could I have missed at that range? How could he have survived that? How...?  
  
Tsuzuki’s hands were on his shoulders. “Hisoka,” his partner murmured urgently, “are you all right?”  
  
“He didn’t die,” Hisoka said. “I _shot_ him. Why is he still alive? Why is he still--”  
  
Tsuzuki threw his arms around him, clasping him tightly to his chest. “It’s okay,” he said, and sometimes Hisoka wished that Tsuzuki could stop lying, just once. “You saved me, just now.”  
  
 _And got hurt doing it,_ Hisoka felt, and he shoved Tsuzuki away. “Stop feeling so damn _guilty_ about it, you fucking _idiot_!”   
  
“Ooooo-kay,” Watari said, cutting them off. “On the bright side, now we know where he is and what he’s doing, right? So we have something to go on.” He went on briskly. “Time to head back to Meifu and figure out where they’re headed next. Your arm all right now, kid?”  
  
Hisoka nodded. We can’t escape him, he thought. We can’t touch him. He’ll always do this to us, and now he’s-- “Watari-san,” he said, “what did you mean about--” He cut himself off, not nearly in time. “Never mind. Let’s go.”  
  
“What did you mean,” Tsuzuki repeated, one arm wrapped across his own chest, “about ‘the clone’?”  
  
“Ah...” Watari said, hand behind his head. “Maybe we should talk about it back in Meifu.”  
  
The coldness _twisted_ in Tsuzuki’s chest, slimy and choking. “We should talk about it now,” Hisoka said.   
  
“Ah,” Watari said, not meeting their eyes. “Well. I found Muraki’s office, with all the notes he seems to have reconstructed. His computer had some very impressive shielding on it, it was a real trick to get through--” They were staring at him blankly, unwilling to follow the tangent. “Anyway. He, ah-- before you took him out last time he seems to have saved some, ah, genetic samples.” Fury flicked through Watari, spiked with pity and embarrassment for his friend, and Hisoka had a fairly good idea of just what kind of ‘genetic sample’ that was. “Of you, Tsuzuki.” Tsuzuki said nothing, his hands forming tight fists. “And he seems to have-- to have reconstructed enough of his and Dr. Satomi’s research on cloning to have created one. It’s... it’s a fascinating process, he...” The scientist trailed off miserably.  
  
“He made a clone of Tsuzuki,” Hisoka said. “And he put that soul into it.”  
  
“No,” Tsuzuki said.  
  
Hisoka shook. Watari cleared his throat. “Anyway. We should get back-- I can go back into the Reincarnation Division’s computers and see where they’ve gone now, and we can try again. With reinforcements, of course, and if we can find a way to block his teleportation...”   
  
He bit his knuckle, and Hisoka could almost feel sorry for his dismay if he could have felt anything except Tsuzuki’s misery; _It’s all my fault, all because of me, always because of me..._ “The baby,” Tsuzuki said raggedly, shoulders shaking. “We have to go after him. We have to find him, we have to get him back...”  
  
Watari nodded. “Right. Just give me an hour or so--”  
  
Tsuzuki raised his head to stare at him, frantically incredulous. “We can’t wait that long! He’s hurting him now! We have to stop it. Please...”  
  
Watari’s eyes widened. “Well... I’ll hurry, but it’ll still take some time to get back into their system. And we should still stop to make a plan-- if we run off half-cocked, he’ll just do what he did this time--”  
  
“ _No,_ ” Tsuzuki snarled, moving toward the scientist. “We can’t wait. Watari, he has him, he--”   
  
“ _Tsuzuki,_ ” Hisoka almost shouted, his partner’s panic sharpening his voice. “Calm the hell _down_!”   
  
Tsuzuki spun. “What?”  
  
“He got away,” Hisoka panted. “He’s gone. We can’t get him now.”  
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “No. No, Hisoka, no, we have to--”  
  
“Later,” Hisoka said, having trouble choking out the words. “Not now.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s voice broke. “No.” But the realization was hitting him and hitting hard, and his arms wrapped around himself. “He has him...”   
  
Hisoka stood. “Enough,” he said. “We’re going home. Watari-san, call us when you find something. Until then, you can tell Tatsumi-san that we’re taking the rest of the day off.” Watari grimaced, helpless and hating it. “We’ll be in tomorrow,” Hisoka said ruthlessly. He wrapped his arms around Tsuzuki. “Come on. We’re going.”   
  
Tsuzuki’s knees gave way the instant the walls of his own apartment appeared around them, and Hisoka nearly collapsed under his weight. “Tsuzuki!”  
  
“It’s my fault,” Tsuzuki whispered, and Hisoka hated it so much when he cried, it was just so _wrong_. “He made him out of me, and he’s torturing him, and he was hurting so _much_. He hurt him so much...”  
  
I can’t do this, Hisoka thought, holding his shuddering partner close. What do I say? I can’t say “it’s okay”-- it’s not. I can’t say “we’ll stop him”-- what if we won’t? We haven’t. “Tsuzuki,” he murmured, and he was so helpless, so hopeless, and holding onto his partner, his lover, wasn’t enough, it didn’t make anything better. Nothing was better, nothing could be, nothing changed. He was such a monster, so inhuman, such a mistake of the universe, and it just went on and on and on and there was no relief for him, he could never get away from himself, and he wanted to die, he wanted to die so much, he had to die, he had to burn, he had to bleed-- “Tsuzuki,” he cried, pulling away, a voice over the maelstrom, “ _stop_ it! It hurts...”  
  
Tsuzuki gasped. “Hisoka?”  
  
Shock cutting through the pain, but the pain didn’t go away, it just resonated deeper, all through him, he was nothing but pain... Hisoka shut his eyes, but tears still streamed out of them. “I’m sorry, Tsuzuki. I-- your emotions, they’re-- please calm down. Please.”  
  
Tsuzuki took a deep, shuddering breath. Then another.   
  
Hisoka shook, digging his nails into his palms, the sharpness not quite distraction enough, but maybe it was easing a little, oh gods, he wanted to die...  
  
Tsuzuki dashed his eyes on the sleeve of his trenchcoat. “Sorry, Hisoka,” he said, low-voiced. A smile cracked on his face. “I’m sorry.”   
  
Hisoka wiped his own eyes, his breath slowing. That’s always there, he thought. Not that overwhelming, not all the time, but it’s always in him. Every second. Every day. Every decade. “It’s not your fault,” he said, again.  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “I should have thought about your empathy,” he said, and the sense of betrayal was buried so deep Hisoka wasn’t even sure he noticed it. “I won’t do it again, Hisoka. I p--”  
  
“Don’t promise that.” Hisoka stepped away, leaning on a table. Tsuzuki’s apartment was a mess, as always, and Hisoka stepped carefully over comic books scattered spine up near his feet. “I shouldn’t ask that,” he said, looking down at his own small, white hands on the scarred wooden surface. “I should be strong enough for you. You always are for me.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsuzuki said. He sighed, trying hard to feel better as Hisoka asked. It felt terribly hollow. He took off his trenchcoat, dropping it onto a chair, then sank into the seat. “There’s nothing to do about it, anyway.”   
  
He felt almost like he always did, now. If I hadn’t just been here, Hisoka thought, I wouldn’t know about that at all. “But there should be,” Hisoka said. “There has to be.” They couldn’t leave it like this. This couldn’t go on.   
  
“There’s not,” Tsuzuki said, short and matter-of-fact. The late afternoon light caught his profile through the window, setting his face aglow, as if lit by flames. He smiled, and it wasn’t an effort, it was honest sympathy for Hisoka for having to deal with this. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.”   
  
Hisoka felt his face twist in a snarl. “You shouldn’t be!”   
  
“Shouldn’t I?” Tsuzuki seemed almost amused.   
  
Hisoka’s voice shook. “You can’t just let it go,” he said. “You have to fight it. That’s the only thing to do. Otherwise...” He moved toward Tsuzuki, meeting his eyes. “You said you’d overcome him, with me. That we’d do it together. You can’t do that if you give up.”   
  
Tsuzuki sighed. “I haven’t given up,” he said. “I’ll help you with that, Hisoka. I said I would.”  
  
Hisoka frowned. “That’s not what you meant. You have to overcome him, too. That-- that was the point.”   
  
“Mm?” Tsuzuki said. “Well, how ‘bout you go first, and I’ll follow you, then?” He shook his head a little, throwing off some of the tension. “There’s nothing we can do about it right now, though.”   
  
His voice was tripping back to its normal range, strong and bright or slipping into a cajoling whine, any trace of the furious sorrow disappearing. Wait, Hisoka felt like saying. Wait, Tsuzuki, you’re lying again. To yourself and to me, and... and it’s a relief. I couldn’t handle feeling that way for much longer. But it isn’t gone.   
  
“What about dinner?” Tsuzuki suggested. “We could try making Chinese. The stir-fry came out pretty well, if I say so myself.”  
  
Hisoka had had, as Tsuzuki knew perfectly well, a different opinion about the stir-fry. It was an invitation back to their normal banter, and Hisoka could feel how desperately Tsuzuki wanted him to take it. He just didn’t know whether or not he could. If I yell at him right now, he thought, I’ll mean it. And I’ll say things neither of us want me to say. “I need to go change my shirt,” he said. “This one has blood on it.”   
  
“Sure,” Tsuzuki said, and said nothing about how the blood had gotten there. “I washed the one you left here last week-- it’s in the clean laundry pile in the bedroom.” He winked. “You want help changing?”  
  
Which was another invitation to distraction, and it felt wrong, but it was also an invitation to touch. He needed touch, just now. “Mm,” Hisoka said. “Yeah.”   
  
Tsuzuki stood up and Hisoka went to him, just holding him tight. Words didn’t work, words did nothing, but at least he could hold him here. At least Tsuzuki could feel him, a little warmth against the unquenched cold. At least he could feel Tsuzuki, solid and strong around him, here to keep him safe. Muraki isn’t dead, he thought. Maybe he never will be. We are, but we’re still here. And we’re together. He sought Tsuzuki’s mouth with his own, just needing to feel him. This still felt right, anyway, still felt like Tsuzuki could complete him. Like he kept the other half of his heart in Tsuzuki’s chest, and he’d never noticed until he came this close and the two halves could finally beat together. And beat faster, speeding up with the urgency of his kisses, with Tsuzuki’s hands twisting in the edges of his shirt. I was scared, he thought. I was so scared, in Muraki’s house. But we got out. Tsuzuki was tugging his shirt off over his head, losing his lips for a moment in the confusion of cloth, and then Tsuzuki’s hands were warm on his bare skin. “Bedroom,” Hisoka said.   
  
Tsuzuki smirked, Hisoka could feel it against his neck. “You’re just not adventurous, Hisoka...”  
  
“Bedroom,” Hisoka said more firmly. The bedroom windows had blinds drawn. He pulled away from Tsuzuki just long enough to walk the few feet into the other room. Tsuzuki followed, wrapping his arms around Hisoka from behind, and Hisoka couldn’t help noticing how thin he was in Tsuzuki’s arms. I can give him this, anyway, he thought. They knelt on the bed together, his arms going around Tsuzuki’s neck as they fell toward the horizontal, intertwined. I can’t make him all right with himself, I can’t let him cry on me, but at least there’s this. It was good, he thought, breathing Tsuzuki’s breath, feeling himself starting to get hard. It wasn’t enough.   
  
Tsuzuki paused, leaning back on his elbow. “What is it?”  
  
Hisoka looked up at the ceiling, his hand resting on Tsuzuki’s side. You’re giving up, he thought. I don’t think I can forgive you for giving up. Because you’re strong enough to keep going, you’re strong enough to push all that down, every single day-- why won’t you turn and face it? “It’s,” he said, “It’s Muraki.” Tsuzuki’s arm tightened around him, and Hisoka felt his partner clamp down control on the emotions swirling underneath. Hisoka took a deep breath and kept going. “I never told you this, but the night he killed me, he didn’t just--” He’d never told anyone about it before. It was harder than he’d thought to just say the words. “He-- before he...”  
  
“I know,” Tsuzuki said.   
  
Hisoka blinked. “What?”  
  
“I know,” Tsuzuki said, the old furious grief resparked. “He told me what he did.”  
  
Hisoka stared up at him. “When?” he demanded. “When did he tell you that?”  
  
“When he kidnapped you,” Tsuzuki said. “In Nagasaki.” Hisoka said nothing. “I was trying to find you, and he was leading me around...”   
  
Oddly, Hisoka could easily tell his anger from Tsuzuki’s. Tsuzuki’s was remembered and unresolved-- frantic frustration, humiliation, terror and anger fused. Hisoka’s, on the other hand, was quite fresh. “You didn’t tell me.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s whole body tensed. There was a long pause. “Would you have wanted me to, back then?”  
  
“That’s not the point,” Hisoka said, knowing damn well that he wouldn’t have. It would have been so humiliating to have Tsuzuki know that, back then, when Hisoka hadn’t known a single one of his partner’s secrets. But Tsuzuki had known back then. “You knew. All this time. You knew.”  
  
“Yes,” Tsuzuki said. “I did.”   
  
There didn’t seem to be much more to say. You don’t call someone ‘idiot’ for being subtle and discreet. You could call him ruder things. “He had no right to tell you that.”  
  
“I know,” Tsuzuki said. “I cut him off. I wouldn’t let him tell me more.” _So helpless, he’d felt so fucking helpless, and Muraki had known it and laughed._  
  
“I want to kill him,” Hisoka said.   
  
Tsuzuki sighed agreement. “He deserves it,” he said. “We will.” Tsuzuki was listening intently, hoping for a sign that they were okay with each other again.   
  
It’s not his fault, Hisoka thought. That’s not really what I’m mad at him about. He remembered his point and went on. “So sometimes, I suddenly remember it. And it feels like it’s happening again, like a hallucination. I forget where I am, and I’m just back there.”   
  
“You get those too?” Tsuzuki said. “I hate those.”  
  
Hisoka half-turned. “What do you--” he started, then stopped. “I never noticed you doing that.”  
  
“It’s been eighty-one years,” Tsuzuki said. “I’ve had lots of practice at keeping them to myself.” His anger about that was hidden and well-buried, but Hisoka had it freshly on his own-- no one ever asked? What’s wrong with them? Us. We should have noticed. I should have noticed, I’m a damn empath-- “I remember lots of things,” Tsuzuki said in seemingly nonchalant answer to the interrupted question. “They blur together.”   
  
Hisoka wanted and did not want to ask, as Tsuzuki wanted and did not want to tell him. It was a little reassuring, though, to know that he wasn’t the only one. So I’m not going crazy, then, he thought. Or at least I’ve got company on the trip. “They’re awful,” he said.   
  
“Sometimes you can avoid them,” Tsuzuki said. “Certain things bring them on-- you figure out what after a while. You get used to it. You have to-- they don’t go away. Maybe it’s part of being a shinigami. I think Tatsumi gets them too, but I never asked.”   
  
“I have figured out what,” Hisoka said, turning to face him. He met Tsuzuki’s eyes, not letting the serious look get away. He put his hand on Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “And I figured out how to stop them.”  
  
Tsuzuki blinked. “What?”  
  
“For a while,” Hisoka said, “I’d get them every time I thought about doing something with you.” He stroked his hand down Tsuzuki’s body, an indication of what kind of ‘something.” “He was the only person I’d ever... the only experience I had. So if I tried to touch myself, I’d have one of those. I’d be back there, with him.”   
  
He shivered, trying hard to stay focused. Tsuzuki, he thought, filling his eyes with his partner’s serious face. Tsuzuki’s arm went around his back, protective and reassuring. Hisoka rested his head against Tsuzuki’s chest, feeling solid flesh through the fabric of his shirt. “But I wasn’t going to let him control me like that,” he said. “I’m not his puppet. Neither of us are.”   
  
Tsuzuki shifted, wishing Hisoka wouldn’t bring him into it. Damn it, Hisoka thought, and went on more strongly. “So I didn’t let him. I’d distract myself. I’d think about you.”   
  
He pulled back to look at Tsuzuki again, willing him to see. “And now I’m free. I still get them sometimes, but... I can touch you, and it’s just you.” He pulled Tsuzuki forward, taking the larger man’s full weight onto him, pinned under his body. “I’m not scared, right now. I know it’s you. I’m okay.” There was still a frisson of fear, sparking in the depths, but there was too much trust for it. Tsuzuki was heavy, breathing was hard, but it felt good to be so completely held, so very present. “I beat it, Tsuzuki. So can you.”   
  
Tsuzuki’s head was resting on his shoulder. “That’s wonderful,” he said, softly. “Good for you.” I’m amazing, Hisoka felt. I’m so strong.   
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “That’s not the point. It’s not ‘amazing.’ It’s not impossible. You can do that. If you try. You can be free of him, too.” Tsuzuki said absolutely nothing. “Tsuzuki?”  
  
When Tsuzuki spoke, it was a whisper. “But I’m not like you.”   
  
“Tsuzuki...”  
  
There was almost a laugh in Tsuzuki’s voice. “I’m not, Hisoka. I wish I were. But I’m not.” _Not even human,_ Hisoka felt.  
  
Yes you are, dammit, Hisoka thought. “Neither am I,” he said. “That’s what my mother said. Because of the empathy. She said I was a monster. Not a human being.”   
  
“She was wrong,” Tsuzuki said, and that anger was old, too-- _how could someone do that to her own child? How could someone do that to_ you? “She didn’t know what she was talking about.”   
  
Hisoka sighed, feeling pinned, now, wanting to push him away. “Why do you do that?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“For me,” Hisoka said. “You get angry for me.” As angry as if it had happened to you, he remembered himself saying. He’d been wrong. “Not for you. You hate Muraki for what he did to me, or the others-- why the hell can’t you hate him for what he did to _you_?”   
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “He didn’t really do much to me, Hisoka...”  
  
“Bullshit! Tsuzuki, he tortured you! He experimented on you! He... except for the curse, he did everything to you that he did to me.”   
  
“But you didn’t deserve it.”  
  
Hisoka could have hit him. “Neither did you!”   
  
“Mm.” Tsuzuki shrugged, his mouth moving on Hisoka’s collarbone. “Don’t we have more interesting things to talk about than this?”  
  
Hisoka shoved, hard, pushing his partner off of him. “No.”   
  
Tsuzuki fell backwards, startled. “Hisoka?”  
  
Hisoka scrambled off the bed, glaring down at him. “What the fuck do you mean, you deserve it?”  
  
Tsuzuki winced backwards. “I didn’t say that...”  
  
“Yes, you did! It’s what you meant.” Maybe not what he actually said, but Hisoka didn’t care just now. “You think you deserved what he did to you.”  
  
Tsuzuki sat in the tangle of sheets, folded in on himself. “Hisoka...”  
  
“No!” Hisoka spat. “You think he cares about that? Does that mean that he chose you just to punish you for something?”  
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “No,” he said.  
  
“Then what is it?”  
  
“Just...” Tsuzuki said, “he hurt all those people to get to me. He never would have done that if it hadn’t been for me.”   
  
“No,” Hisoka spat. “That’s a lie. That’s a lie he told you. Tsuzuki, he was hurting people a long time before he met you. He didn’t kill me to get at you. He didn’t kill the woman I found him killing to get at you. He kills because he likes it. It’s fun for him,” and Hisoka would have been just as happy not to get a sudden memory of how _much_ Muraki enjoyed killing, but he just shuddered and went on. “You know that. Don’t you?” Tsuzuki said nothing. “Don’t you?”  
  
“...yes.” Tsuzuki looked down, studying his hands clasped around his knees, wondering idly how long this was going to go on.  
  
Hisoka grabbed him by the shoulders. “ _Listen_ to me!”   
  
Tsuzuki met his eyes. “I am listening,” he said, and there was fury burning behind the guileless purple gaze, _leave me alone, damn you_.  
  
Hisoka didn’t. “Did he kill me to get at you? Did he have any idea then that someday there would be a connection between us?”  
  
“Maybe.” Tsuzuki shifted his weight, leaning backwards, throwing Hisoka off-balance. “But he killed all those people in Kyoto to draw me out. And in Nagasaki.”   
  
“That’s what he _said_ ,” Hisoka said. “To you. Because he knew that that would hurt you.”   
  
Tsuzuki gave him the ghost of a smile. “Guess it worked, huh?”   
  
Hisoka wasn’t buying that. If you think, he thought, that I’m going to back off just because you show me you’re in pain, you can think again. You think I didn’t know that already? “Yes. It did. Because he’s good at hurting people. He’s good at figuring out just what’s the worst thing he could possibly do, and then doing it. You saw how he treated Tsubaki-hime.” Tsuzuki winced. “He knows how much you care about people. He knows that the worst thing he could do to you is to hurt someone else. So he told you that it was your fault he did.”   
  
Tsuzuki nodded. “He hurt people to get to me.”  
  
“He hurt people because he wanted to,” Hisoka snapped. “He lied to you about why.”   
  
“He wasn’t lying.”  
  
Hisoka glared. “Why the hell do you _want_ him to have done that to get at you?”   
  
“...what?”  
  
“You’re arguing with me,” Hisoka said. He wanted to grab Tsuzuki by the hair, scream this into his mind. He wanted to have empathy that went both ways, so he could make him feel this, make him understand. “You don’t want to think that he killed except to get at you. You don’t _want_ to think it isn’t all your fault.” His hands clenched around the shoulders of Tsuzuki’s shirt. “It _isn’t your fault.”_  
  
“Yes, it is!” Tsuzuki knocked his hands away with a single blow, rising to his feet, and Hisoka was suddenly reminded just how much bigger his partner was, how much more powerful. He darted backwards, eyes wide. “I’m a killer. A murderer. Hundreds of people are dead because of me. No-one else. I took their lives. I’m really good at it,” and there was a flash of humor, there, and Hisoka hadn’t been scared of Tsuzuki in a very long time, but maybe he should have been. “Whose fault do you think that is, if not mine?”  
  
“Enma’s.” The words were out before he had time to think, and he went on before he could stop himself. “Or did you volunteer for this job? There’s no-one still on Earth you care about, is there?”   
  
Tsuzuki glared down at him. “That’s not it.”  
  
“It is so,” Hisoka said, and things were starting to come clear, things he hadn’t been able to figure out before. “Enma won’t let you go, will he? That’s why you haven’t just moved on. That’s why you had to summon Touda. You can’t just leave.”   
  
“ _You_ don’t want me to leave,” Tsuzuki snarled. He was pacing, now, a tiger in a cage. “I stayed for you. I’m doing this horrible, dirty job because _you_ said you couldn’t live without me.”   
  
Hisoka staggered. No, he thought. No, I-- He had a vivid sense-memory of Oriya’s blade slicing through him, of the impact of that blow. No, he thought. I’m going to finish this fight. You can’t stop me. No. “You could have gone a long time before I showed up,” he said, voice shaking. “He wouldn’t let you.”   
  
“ _No_ ,” Tsuzuki spat, striking out, smashing his fist into the wall. It shattered under his blow, bits of plaster exploding out all around him. “No!”   
  
Hisoka stood, panting, willing himself not to run away. “He wouldn’t let you stop,” he said. “You’re too powerful. You’ve got twelve gods. He won’t let you stop.”  
  
“Powerful?” Tsuzuki snarled, “Is _this_ power?” He slammed another punch at the wall, another, the sound of the blows ringing in Hisoka’s ears. “ _This_? Does _this_ keep anyone alive?” and Hisoka was shaking, his hands up defensively in front of him, “Does this protect _anyone_? Does this do _anything_ except make things worse? Make everything worse...”   
  
Hisoka swallowed, adrenaline bitter and dry in his mouth. “Tsuzuki...”   
  
“I’m not powerful.” Tsuzuki stood, head bowed, cracks shattering through the wall around him, making a broken corona. Hisoka couldn’t see his face. “Twelve gods are nothing, compared to him.”   
  
Empty, Hisoka thought. Filled with emptiness, because if the flood breaks through-- “Tsuzuki.”   
  
“I can’t leave,” Tsuzuki said. “I can’t stop. I can’t die. I just kill, and kill, and... and Muraki could have stopped me.” He leaned on his fist, still buried in the wall, put his other hand out to brace himself. “If he’d killed me, if he’d just taken me... I could have stopped. I could have just stopped. Just let him do what he wanted, and I could have just gone...”  
  
“Why didn’t you?” Hisoka whispered.  
  
Tsuzuki crumpled, sliding down the wall. “Because it hurt,” he whispered. “Because he was hurting me, and I’m so tired of being hurt. So tired. It’s been so long, and why does this happen to me? Why can’t I be human? Why do I have to be this? Why...?”  
  
The pain was so real, Hisoka felt. And so much. And for so long. And if he wasn’t careful, Tsuzuki would flood him with it, surely more than he could take. Surely he’d lose himself. He should leave, now, before the emotions in the room got to be more than he could handle.  
  
He stepped forward and knelt, putting his hand on Tsuzuki’s shoulder. Nothing I can say, he thought, nothing that will make it better. “Tsuzuki...” he said, and held out his arms.  
  
Tsuzuki collapsed into them and Hisoka had been right, it hurt. _So long. So horribly long. And so much..._ There was no way to brace against this flood, no way to keep from being swept away. All he could do was cling to Tsuzuki, as Tsuzuki was clinging to him, and let it wash over them. “I love you,” he murmured through his own choking sobs. Not “it’s all right,” or “it’ll change,” or “it’s not your fault,”-- just “I love you. I love you. I love you.”


	7. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Public Service Announcement: Hisoka and Tsuzuki practice unsafe sex because they are ALREADY DEAD. If you do not wish to share this condition, think about your risks and/or use protection. Thank you.

“You, too,” Tsuzuki murmured, much later, lying spent and wrung out in Hisoka’s arms. He was quiet, now, drifting, easy. The late afternoon sunlight was just disappearing from the windows, and the room was dim and warm and quiet. Sounds of other people’s lives filtered in softly from outside, but in here, it was just them. Just Tsuzuki in his lap, lying on the floor, holding on. He wasn’t letting go. “No-one’s ever been like you. There’s no-one I’d let see me like that.”  
  
“Mm,” Hisoka said, not sure how to go back to speaking in words. After all that truth, conversation seemed so... casual. Lacking. There didn’t seem to be anything to say that wouldn’t be corny, or anything that could be enough to hold all of that. I won the argument, he thought, vaguely. I got you to come out, stop lying, I got you to stop hiding from me. And I can see now why you were hiding, and maybe you were right to hide for a while, but now I need to show you that you were right to stop. You can trust me with this. You can trust me to hold it for you. I’m not sure how to say that.   
  
He had other options, though. The position made it awkward, but Hisoka managed to twist around and bring his face down to Tsuzuki’s. Tears were salty on Tsuzuki’s cheeks, but his mouth was as warm and welcome as ever when he kissed him.  
  
Tsuzuki opened under him, leaning up on his hand to meet Hisoka, easing them into each other. Relief, Hisoka felt, at the confirmation of us. Tsuzuki closed his eyes, drinking in Hisoka’s mouth on his, just relaxing into his desire. Loose, Hisoka thought, relaxed-- Tsuzuki felt almost like he did after they’d already been to bed together-- slow and released and affectionate, reaching out just one more time to reaffirm their connection. He traced a gentle hand along Hisoka’s cheek, caressing his bare shoulder. _Hisoka,_ Hisoka heard, touch and closeness amplifying his empathy so that the feelings came through in words, _am I human?_  
  
Hisoka sighed into his mouth, pulling him closer. _Yes. You’re human._  
  
Tsuzuki moaned softly, relief and homecoming. _I see. So, I’m human..._ His hand drifted down across Hisoka’s chest, tracing muscles and very faint scars, and the skin between the lines of the scars was sensitive enough to make Hisoka gasp. _And you love me._  
  
 _Yes._ Really no point in denying it as his hand clenched in Tsuzuki’s hair, as he arched forward into Tsuzuki’s touch. One thing about being stuck in a sixteen-year-old body, Hisoka had found, was that he was ridiculously easy to arouse when he let himself. That had been so intense, that storm of grief and fury and succor. He didn’t want to just sit with it. He wanted to make it physical, to be free of the emotional aftertaste. _Tsuzuki..._  
  
“Mmmmm,” Tsuzuki hummed against his skin, a savoring sound. _I love you._ He shifted to let Hisoka unbutton his shirt, welcoming the exposure. _I trust you._ He caught Hisoka’s mouth with his, open and hungry. _I need you._  
  
 _Yes_. He wanted to move with him, Hisoka thought, wanted to speak without words, wanted to be alive and moving together. Wanted to make him feel good. He sort of owed it to him. And he wanted to feel it. _You, too. Now.  
  
Yes. Now..._ and then a thought too abstract for Hisoka to catch. Tsuzuki drew back, face open again, clear skies after the clouds’ passing, with possible pleasure on the horizon. “Hisoka,” he said, musingly, his mouth returning to his partner’s neck, “we’ve gone to bed a lot, these past few months.” Arousal at the thought, and a tint of nerves as he went on. “But we’ve never actually fucked, you know?”  
  
Hisoka froze.   
  
“Hisoka?”   
  
Hisoka’s first thought was his habitual startlement that his partner could act so childlike and then use language like that.  
  
His second thought was that he wished his third thought could also be about Tsuzuki’s language, not what he’d said.  
  
“Do you want to?” Tsuzuki asked.  
  
Hisoka’s hands rested still on Tsuzuki’s back, not moving with him, not pulling away. “What?”  
  
Tsuzuki’s emotions were a blur-- a good blur, but hard to pick apart. “It just seemed like a good time to try it,” he said. “No?”  
  
He wants to, Hisoka thought, I can tell that much. Which seems... “You really want to?”  
  
Uncertainty, Hisoka felt, and something moving deep, something he just wasn’t getting. “It’s fun,” Tsuzuki said. “It feels good. But you never tried it, with me...”   
  
“I didn’t want to be like Muraki,” Hisoka said. “Either of us.”  
  
Tsuzuki flicked his hair. “He didn’t invent it,” he said. He doesn’t want to pressure me, Hisoka thought, but-- “Didn’t you want to overcome him?”  
  
Hisoka didn’t argue that. He wants to give back, he thought. So much gratitude to me just for being here, so much wanting to repay me for it. And more, wanting to go farther. There’s something... It matters. I don’t know why, but it matters. “...yes.”  
  
Tsuzuki smiled against his neck. “Good,” he said, relieved, and Hisoka found it. _I showed you all of that_ , Tsuzuki was thinking, almost loudly enough to project the thought, and Hisoka was still hearing him. _I wonder how much more I could show you. I wonder if I could show you everything..._   
  
Closer, Hisoka felt. Tsuzuki wanted to be closer, wanted to know that Hisoka could see this much and still want him there, that he hadn’t driven him away. That was a lot, everything we said just now, Hisoka thought. And if I back away, he won’t dare to do it again. Too risky. “Right,” he said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.   
  
Relief, Tsuzuki was feeling so much relief, more than he understood. He didn’t bother to take the time to try to understand. “I think you should be on top,” he said. Hisoka made an inquisitive noise. “The empathy,” Tsuzuki explained, fond and amused and... wanting. Wanting Hisoka _inside_ him, wanting... something, something to do with freedom and pleasure and abandon, something Hisoka didn’t quite get. There was a lot here he didn’t get. Like why the hell Tsuzuki was feeling all that wanting for... _that._   
  
“That makes sense,” Hisoka said, heart pounding hard enough to hear. “Sure.”  
  
Tsuzuki sparkled at him. “I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up with a kiss and heading down the hall toward the bathroom. “Don’t go anywhere.”  
  
“Where would I go?” Hisoka called after him, sharply. He wiped sweaty palms on the legs of his jeans. Tsuzuki closed the door behind him, and Hisoka was left wondering at the shifts in his partner’s feelings, the very many faces he wore. But I don’t think he’s lying right now, he thought. This doesn’t feel put-on. Just... to him, it follows naturally from that, going from extreme to extreme. Or something. It did feel right in some ways to turn the tables back a little, to assert again that, however strong Hisoka might be, Tsuzuki was older. Wiser, maybe. More experienced, certainly. Enough to have done _this_ before, for example, more than once.   
  
Speaking of which. Hisoka went to the drawer where Tsuzuki kept personal lubricant and pulled out the silver bottle. He’d done much more research, lately. He practically had diagrams. And with the last few months’ knowledge of Tsuzuki, of Tsuzuki’s body, this shouldn’t be too difficult, right?  
  
Oh, gods, what if I hurt him?  
  
This was a terrible idea. He’s hurting already, Hisoka thought. I just felt that. I know just how much he’s hurting. I can’t risk adding to that, not now. Maybe we could just do something else, Hisoka thought, half-panicked, something I already know how to do, maybe if I didn’t talk about it, just did--   
  
He cut himself off sharply. Speaking of being like Muraki, he thought. No. And besides... I said I would. It’ll be a rejection, if I don’t. And I think that would hurt him worse.  
  
So. We’ll just... do that. Now.  
  
Right.  
  
“Hisoka?” Tsuzuki stood in the doorway, a robe loosely tied around him. He hesitated. “I was thinking-- if you’re not sure, we could just...”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “I want to.” He stood up enough to undress the rest of the way, quickly, fumbling with buttons, stumbling out of the legs of his jeans, and undoubtedly completely putting the lie to any claim of wanting this. Still. He held out his hand. “Come here.”  
  
Tsuzuki came to him, taking him in his arms, and Hisoka reached out to the tie of the robe, tugging it loose, easing it off his partner’s strong shoulders. All right, he thought, kissing Tsuzuki, turning with him back toward the bed. His pulse was pounding hard, and he couldn’t tell whether it was with wanting out or wanting in. Here, he thought, hands clutching at the bare skin of Tsuzuki’s back, body pressed against his, here. Tsuzuki’s mouth was hungry on his, his growing erection was hard against his stomach, and he wondered how he’d ever managed to convince himself his desire was Tsuzuki’s, a few months ago. They felt so different. His own desire was a strange thing to him, rough-edged and tentative, spiking its way out carefully where it could, like roots growing through rock. Tsuzuki’s was huge, as much a part of him as his magic and just as fire-bright. Lust, Tsuzuki felt lust, and when he could, he’d dive into it joyfully, letting it take over, losing himself in himself. It was a little overwhelming to face it second-hand. It was intoxicating. That, Hisoka thought, feeling his ribs curving under Tsuzuki’s fingers, hearing his own gasp through Tsuzuki’s ears and feeling Tsuzuki’s cock (because Tsuzuki _did_ use those words, and it was catching) jump at the sound, that’s enough. Enough to stay for, enough to get him through. It’s not just getting away from all the pain-- that’s a whole other world from it. That’s just... intense.   
  
All right, Hisoka thought, kissing him, feeling what he wanted. Tsuzuki moved backwards to lie down, and he was beautiful, lying there. The angles of his limbs, the lines of his waist, his collarbone, they _fit_ with his face, his eyes gazing up at Hisoka, trusting, waiting. He looks right like this, Hisoka thought, and didn’t know how to say that. He looked down, trying to move to him smoothly, but finding his own limbs shaking and awkward as he clambered over Tsuzuki. Looking down felt very strange. Tsuzuki smiled at him, a reassurance, and Hisoka bit his own lip-- I’m not... this is weird, this is really weird, I don’t...  
  
“Here,” Tsuzuki murmured, and pulled Hisoka’s head down for a kiss. Hisoka closed his eyes. Tsuzuki wasn’t nervous about this, anyway-- just unnerved by Hisoka’s unease, worried Hisoka might pull away. I won’t, Hisoka thought, determined, trying to feel only Tsuzuki’s feelings. He needed more sensation-- needed Hisoka’s tongue licking a line down his chest, needed Hisoka’s hands twined in his, hard enough to hold him down, needed a harder touch, teeth-- Hisoka winced. I don’t know how to do this, he thought. I feel what he wants, but I-- “Tsuzuki?”  
  
“Shhh...” Tsuzuki lifted his head again, freeing his hands to rest them on Hisoka’s back. “Let’s go slowly.” He tugged Hisoka’s head back up, just letting them rest in a kiss. Hisoka fell into it, relieved at the familiar touch. He relaxed into Tsuzuki’s mouth, letting their tongues play over each other, hearing Tsuzuki pant harder when he sucked his tongue into his mouth... good. It was good. Rest and build, familiar need rising. Tsuzuki’s hand stroked down Hisoka’s back, cupping his ass to pull him closer, fitting him between Tsuzuki’s legs. And their cocks touched and suddenly everything was more urgent. Need, Hisoka felt, and caught a flash of memory, _taken out of himself, falling into the pounding rhythm and lost in his own ecstatic body, please..._  
  
Hisoka shook with the feeling, realizing that his hips were thrusting against Tsuzuki, that Tsuzuki was gripping hard at his shoulders. “Slow” was suddenly entirely irrelevant. “Tsuzuki...” he panted, feeling himself hardening above him, hips rubbing against Tsuzuki’s inner thighs, sweat blending between them, achingly empty. _Please,_ he caught. _Please_... and Tsuzuki was kissing him hard, rippling underneath him, not letting him stop and think. Need, he needed to feel him, needed his touch, and Tsuzuki was guiding his hand down between wide-spread legs. He felt his own hand hesitate, whimpered in frustration at his own hesitation, and curved his fingers into the cleft, into a pocket of fired nerves. That’s... Hisoka thought. Wait, that’s...  
  
Tsuzuki panted his name. “Are you...?”  
  
“It doesn’t _hurt_ ,” Hisoka panted, amazed. He rippled his fingers, his cock jumping at Tsuzuki’s sensation-- teased, pleasured, stretched, nothing like the ripping agony he remembered. “It doesn’t hurt.”  
  
“Nnnn,” Tsuzuki moaned agreement, passing him the lubricant. Hisoka slicked it onto his fingers and pushed in further, his thumb resting outside, exploring lines and ripples of delicate skin, chasing the sensations until he was swearing at the teasing. Tsuzuki’s cock pulsed against his forearm, and there was so much space inside him, slick and aching for him, and a finger was not enough, it was so careful, still, he was still trapped in the world where things could be awkward or wrong or misspoken, he needed more. And Hisoka didn’t want to be in that world either-- he wanted to be inside that heat, wanted to move as Tsuzuki remembered moving, _driving himself onto him, matching strengths, matching movement, primal and fierce and freed..._ “Please,” Tsuzuki panted, “Hisoka, need you in me, now, please...”   
  
Hisoka pulled back, trying not to think as he slicked the lubricant over himself, his hand reminding his nerves what it felt like to be touched. So long, he thought, I hated touch for so long, because I wanted it so much that I would have been overwhelmed to get it, just like this. Not yet, he wasn’t hard enough yet, it wasn’t enough, but his hand was slick on himself and Tsuzuki could feel him stroking himself solid, his hand and the tip of his cock brushing Tsuzuki’s groin, and Tsuzuki _wanted_. Hisoka fumbled, trying to get in, not managing, almost whimpering in their shared frustration. Tsuzuki panted reassurance, angling his hips further upward, putting a hand down to guide him-- “Don’t worry, it happens, just... here, need you here, just... yeah,” and the solid tip of his cock slipped into place just snug against him, just outside where it needed to be, and he thrust hard-- _yes_. Sudden shock, and Hisoka yelped, as much in disappointment as in Tsuzuki’s pain. He felt himself starting to go limp again, but Tsuzuki’s hand on his ass was holding him in place, Tsuzuki’s voice was soothing, “Shhh, okay, it’s okay, wait a second,” and the sensation faded, pain was another world than this, and Tsuzuki pulled him inside.   
  
Hisoka let himself go, suddenly remembering his own body, his feelings mirroring Tsuzuki’s, cascading. This is what I was made for, Hisoka thought, this is what I have a body for, this is why I have a cock at all, so that I can be inside him, like this, moving like this. Good, just good, and he wanted him deeper inside him, and he wanted to be deeper inside, there, he wanted him _there_ , again, again, Tsuzuki was shouting with every thrust, hands clenching, hips thrusting up at him, needing to move with him, needing to move faster. Harder, he wanted to go harder and he was filled up deep and held close and it was good, wordlessly good, and his back arched, pulling him deeper. He felt strong, felt so good to be on top of him, to be making him moan and gasp with every thrust, good to be so hot and open and helplessly needing, good to surge up against him and with him, good to be on him and in him and under him and feel him inside. Fast, like flight, like nothing, there was nothing but this. Nothing else...   
  
Tsuzuki was clinging, hard, eyes closed, lost language, lost self, but Hisoka could feel his meaning-- _Want you. Need you._ Tsuzuki’s hands clenched on his hips, pulling him in hard, deep. _Need you to take me out of myself... need you to free me. Just like you did before-- let me let the shadows out of my head. Let me do nothing but feel, with you, let me know you’ll help me find my way back when I have to come back, but right now-- let me lose my name. Let me know it’s safe. Let me know you love me. Take me, take the burden of being me away._ Tsuzuki shook under him, cried out, back arching. _Free me, love. Free me. Free me._  
  
 _Yes,_ Hisoka sent, _go, take me with you, let’s just be this.._. His hips were thrusting, hard, the world was jerking around him, his mouth opened wide on a shout, but all he heard was his answer to Tsuzuki, _gone, we’re gone, together, we’re free..._  
  
Tsuzuki’s arms were warm on his back, and he was crying again, hot and wet and held close. _I love you,_ Hisoka told him, mouth not yet able to form words. _I love you, I love you, I love you. Always._ Tsuzuki returned the feeling, not yet present enough for words, but with him. Together, Hisoka thought. It’s good to be together. It’s good to be with you. He wanted to rest in this moment, he wanted to rest in him, forever. His breathing matched Tsuzuki, slowing, gentling-- just rising up and down with his partner’s deep breaths, rocked on him. Alchemy, Hisoka thought. Transmuting pain to pleasure, memories to presence, here and now. I want to stay here. You are my home, and I want to close the door behind us and stay in. Let everything else go. I just want to be here with you.  
  
He slipped into sleep not long afterwards and so, just for that evening, he could stay.


	8. Chapter Seven

n the morning, Hisoka found that they’d shifted positions, that he’d slipped out of Tsuzuki sometime in the night and curled up on his side, Tsuzuki spooned behind him. The alarm clock had about ten minutes before it would go off, and he realized he didn’t much want to get up and get ready for work. This was so comfortable, so warm. Why not? he thought. We certainly had a hard enough day yesterday. Why shouldn’t we just stay in? He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to think about anything except Tsuzuki’s soft breath in his ear. He didn’t want to go to work. He didn’t want to think about what they’d found yesterday.  
  
That was ineffective.  
  
Muraki, Hisoka thought, and the warmth of the bed was no longer a comfort. Muraki was still out there, and their stormy conversation might have been good for them, but it wasn’t a defense. He wasn’t sure there was a defense.   
  
“Nmmmh?” Tsuzuki, behind him, was swimming his way back to consciousness, his arm tighter around Hisoka. “Y’okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said, and realized he’d tensed up. He tried to relax against Tsuzuki’s chest. “Good morning.”  
  
“Mmmmm...” Tsuzuki sighed, smiling against his shoulders. _“Good_ morning.” Pleasure, comfort, slight twinges inside and delight at those. Tsuzuki’s afterglow took a long time to fade, Hisoka thought, his thoughts were still glimmering at the corners. “Sleep well?”  
  
“Mm,” Hisoka said, because he supposed he had. No dreams, anyway, and he felt well-rested. “You?”  
  
“Wonderfully,” Tsuzuki sighed, and Hisoka supposed the word for what he did next was _snuggled_. “Wonderfully well, thank-you.” His hand twined in Hisoka’s, he brought it back over Hisoka’s shoulder to kiss his fingers. “You’re good to sleep with, Hisoka.”   
  
Hisoka sighed. “We have to get up soon.”  
  
“Get up?” Tsuzuki’s voice tripped into a grumble. “What would we want to get up for? You’re right here, the bed’s right here... what else do we need?”  
  
Hisoka almost laughed. “Breakfast, maybe? We missed dinner.”  
  
“Mmmmm.” Tsuzuki mused, his hand drifting from Hisoka’s hand to graze his belly and on down. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind wrapping my mouth around something...”  
  
“Tsuzu-- _ki_ ,” he gasped. “We... we have... work...”   
  
“Mm?” Tsuzuki breathed in his ear, and Hisoka could hear him trying not to think about yesterday. Starting to fail, too, his muscles tensing up, his good mood trembling. “Yes. You’re right.” He hesitated. “But the alarm hasn’t even gone off yet...”  
  
“Ah... yes,” Hisoka tried, “but it...” Tsuzuki pulled him backwards, bringing his other hand up underneath him to cradle Hisoka’s balls, and Hisoka gave up trying to form words.  
  
“See?” Tsuzuki purred in his ear. “Plenty of time,” and his hands were so good, so skillful, and it was good to hold him and feel him arching against his chest, beautiful to watch his face go uncontrolled and needing as he touched him, good to feel him hard in his hands, good to be able to do this for him, just good...  
  
The alarm clock buzzed.  
  
They stopped moving, Hisoka leaning forward, breaking away. “Come on,” he said, regaining control of his breathing.   
  
“Yeah,” Tsuzuki said, heavily. He leaned over to shut off the alarm, the weight of the day settling onto his back, above his eyes. The usual fear was still here, at the back of his mind where it usually rested, and just because he hadn’t noticed it for a while didn’t mean it wasn’t still there. It was always there...  
  
What am I _doing_? Hisoka thought. He was feeling good. He hasn’t felt good in months, he hasn’t felt anything like good in months-- I’m going to throw that away just to be punctual? Does our getting in on time really matter that much? “Hey,” he said, reaching out to put his hand on Tsuzuki’s arm, “wait. You aren’t planning to just leave me like _this_ , are you?”   
  
Tsuzuki frowned, confused. “What?”  
  
Hisoka gestured downwards, indicating his erection. “I still need... ah... you. Now.” He really hoped that, at some point in his life, he’d learn how to say things like that smoothly. “We’ve still got time. Don’t just... run off.”  
  
Tsuzuki paused, then slowly started to smirk. “But Hisoka,” he said, turning off the second alarm clock, “we can’t just lie around in bed. Don’t you know we’ve got responsibilities? Don’t you know how important--mmmmph.”  
  
Hisoka growled against his mouth, trying to recover his balance from his lunge. “Like you care,” he mumbled indistinctly. “Shut up and touch me.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Tsuzuki grinned, gently moving Hisoka onto his back. “Anything you say.” Then his mouth was too full to say anything else, and Hisoka just got soft laughter in his mind, catching at the desire, igniting. Good, Hisoka thought, he’s feeling all right again. That’s good. That’s _good..._  
  
And it was good. Good to watch Tsuzuki’s face change in the sunlight, good to feel him hard in his hands. They rolled together, and that always felt like wrestling to Hisoka, but it didn’t matter that Tsuzuki had him outweighed by a lot because he was safe-- their bodies were toys, not weapons. It was more play this morning than anything else, and Hisoka was glad he’d learned from Tsuzuki how to play, a little. It was a break from everything else. This didn’t have the intensity of last night, but it was free, timeless, divorced from the rest of their lives. He didn’t know how to say that.  
  
“Mmmm,” Tsuzuki hummed against his chest, “you’re kind of like heaven, you know?”  
  
“You’re so sappy,” Hisoka said, when he could breathe again, and kissed his forehead.   
  
“I know,” Tsuzuki said. “You keep telling me.” He sighed, and Hisoka could hear him listening to his heartbeat. “But you feel so good.” _And warm, and safe, and..._ “And you’re beautiful.”  
  
“Sappy,” Hisoka said. “Hopelessly sappy.” Though honesty compelled him to mutter, _sotto voce,_ “So’re you.”   
  
He could feel Tsuzuki grin. “You were great last night, Hisoka.”   
  
Arguing with you? Hisoka wondered. Or... oh. “Mm.”  
  
Tsuzuki wanted to laugh at him, he could feel it. “No, really. I’ve been wanting to do that with you for so long... And it was better than I’d hoped.” Flashes of memory from last night, and Hisoka didn’t think he could be aroused again this soon, but that definitely felt like something. “Not so bad, huh?”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “Not so bad.” He ran his hand through Tsuzuki’s hair. Not so bad at all, he thought. But what are you getting at?  
  
“Good,” Tsuzuki said, and didn’t ask any of the questions which could have followed.   
  
That left Hisoka free to think about them, of course. “It wasn’t,” he said slowly, “that I didn’t want to.” Tsuzuki lay still, listening to his voice through his chest. “I just... didn’t want to hurt you. Or...”   
  
“I wouldn’t do anything that hurt you,” Tsuzuki said, almost sure that he didn’t need to give that reassurance any more.   
  
“I know,” Hisoka said. “I know that. I just... didn’t have anything to go on except experience, with that. And bits of your memories.”  
  
“Mine?” Tsuzuki said.  
  
Hisoka had thought he’d known that. “I... sort of overhear them, in flashes. When you’re dreaming. Or in bed-- it’s how I know what to do.”   
  
“Oh,” Tsuzuki said, sounding disquieted. His mind, ever a traitor, seemed to be providing a parade of all the memories that he wouldn’t want Hisoka to pick up, and the emotions they brought with them made it impossible not to. Hisoka studied the ceiling, trying not to hear all the times Tsuzuki had been hurt, had been scared, had been forced, and all the people-- he sat bolt upright, bringing Tsuzuki with him. “Hisoka?”  
  
“ _Fukou_?” Hisoka demanded, furious.   
  
“Oh,” Tsuzuki said, “that. Look-- it’s not that bad. He-- he only made me twice, I was fine with it the rest of the time...”  
  
“ _Only twice_?” Hisoka snapped. “It’s okay, he only raped you twice? What--” is wrong with you, he just barely managed not to say. “Tsuzuki!”   
  
Tsuzuki put his head against Hisoka’s chest again, hoping he’d lie back down into their earlier ease. “Look, he was really drunk, and so was I, and it’s not like I’d argued any other time, and at least he--” He cut himself off.   
  
“Treated you like a human being, most of the time?” Hisoka finished the thought.  
  
Tsuzuki frowned. “It’s weird when you do that, Hisoka...”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Hisoka said, not feeling sorry. “I can’t control it.” Which he knew Tsuzuki knew, so he didn’t see why he’d be objecting now. “You didn’t say anything when we saw him at the meeting.”  
  
“It was a long time ago,” Tsuzuki muttered.   
  
“So what? That doesn’t make it okay.”   
  
“Well,” Tsuzuki said, “yes, it does.” He leaned back on his elbow, meeting Hisoka’s eyes. “You get over it, after a while, you know? You can’t just dwell on the past all the time. You have to focus on the present, on the good things you have now.” He put a hand to Hisoka’s chest as a demonstration. “Otherwise, you’d go nuts.”  
  
Hisoka stared at him, and didn’t know where he got the strength to not say the first five things that popped into his mind. “But you do dwell on the past,” he said finally, with what he hoped was great restraint.   
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “I know, but... I try not to.” He attempted a smile. “What’s the point? I can’t do anything about it now.”   
  
Hisoka’s head started to hurt. “Tsuzuki, that’s not what you feel. That’s not what you feel at all.”   
  
Tsuzuki frowned. “Hey...”  
  
“What? It isn’t. You’re...” hurting, so much, you’re in so much pain it almost kills you-- it did kill you. “Not as happy as you act. And it’s really easy to see. Even without empathy.”   
  
Tsuzuki’s eyes went empty for a moment, and Hisoka could feel the frantic surmise, could hear it-- _easy? Does that mean Tatsumi knows? Does that mean you think-_ \- “I am happy with you,” he said. “You’re wrong. You do make me happy.”  
  
Some of the anger crumbled, and Hisoka reached for him, holding him close for a moment. “I know,” he said. “Me, too. But the other feelings don’t go away.”   
  
Tsuzuki sighed, not moving away. “Didn’t we finish talking about this last night?” he asked. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much point in going over it again.”  
  
Hisoka supposed there wasn’t. “No,” he said. He dug his chin into Tsuzuki’s shoulder, fierce. “But that’s not going to happen again. If he ever tries that again, I’ll kill him. In a heartbeat.”  
  
“Oh,” Tsuzuki said, and the emotion he settled on of the various ones available was amused fondness. “Might be tough. Fukou’s half-tanuki, you know, he’s more immortal than we are.”  
  
“Half-tanuki?” Hisoka asked, accepting the diversion.   
  
“Yeah. He’s not actually dead-- it’s just that he tried to make a bet with Enma, and it didn’t go so well.” Tsuzuki stretched, stomach grumbling. “Hey, isn’t it about time we thought about b--”  
  
The phone rang. Tsuzuki rolled over and picked it up on the second ring. “Hello?”  
  
The tone of the room changed, so fast Hisoka swore the lights had just gone out. Or gone on, rather-- Tsuzuki’s intense focus switched on the second he heard the voice over the phone. “Watari. You found him?”  
  
Hisoka drew in a breath. Tsuzuki didn’t notice. “Good,” he said. “Great. We’ll be there right away... Oh. Yes, Hisoka too...” He glanced apology at Hisoka. Hisoka squirmed. He supposed that his relationship with Tsuzuki was probably common knowledge... but not this common. Now he’d have to figure out how to talk about it, or around it... Muraki, he thought. Again.  
  
Tsuzuki slapped the phone down. “He did it,” he said. “Watari found out where Muraki’s taken the clone.”   
  
Hisoka blinked. “Where?”  
  
Tsuzuki shook his head, already in the process of bounding out of bed and yanking a suit out of the closet. From the ease of his movements, he had rushing to work late down to a fine science. “He said he’d tell us when we got in.” He tossed Hisoka a sheepish grin. “We’re late.”   
  
“Yes,” Hisoka said, “we are.” In some part of his mind, he was disappointed that the world hadn’t obligingly gone away while they’d been here. We might be okay, he thought, if we could just get away from everyone. Maybe if we just had a little while without everyone pushing at us, he might learn to stop thinking like that... “We need to shower, but we should do it quickly.”  
  
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “We should shower together, then. Save time.”  
  
“That would _not_ ,” Hisoka said, “save time.” He frowned. “I don’t know if I’ve got enough clothes here-- I’d better go home.”  
  
Tsuzuki winced internally. “Right.”   
  
Hisoka frowned. It’s not my fault, he thought. It’s practical. I want to stay, too, but... “I’ll see you in the office.”  
  
“Okay,” Tsuzuki said. He paused in his mad dash to grab Hisoka around the waist, kissing him thoroughly and deeply. _Love you, though. Anyway._  
  
 _Yeah._ Hisoka blinked out.   
  
This feels wrong, he thought in his own shower, quickly scrubbing the dried traces of their lovemaking off his body. Maybe I _should_ move in with him. Our places are both tiny, and it might take years for me to requisition a new one, and he can’t afford anywhere bigger, but... I hate leaving him, this morning. He feels good when I’m around, sometimes. I can make him feel better. Although that would be a full-time job, too. He sighed, quickly running soapy hands through his hair. He thinks he deserves it, he thought. What that bastard did to him, he thinks it’s his own fault.   
  
And I wish I knew which bastard I’m talking about.  
  
Hisoka dried off quickly, pulled on clothes, and went in to work.  
  
He arrived on the Ministry steps-- it was more polite, and a little bit more dignified, than just teleporting directly into the office. All right, he thought, going up the steps, trying to prepare himself. Tsuzuki would be... however Tsuzuki was. Hopefully, Watari’s call meant the scientist had bounced back from yesterday, because otherwise there’d be that furiously sad helplessness again, and with the amount of energy he could put into it, it’d be nearly blinding. Tatsumi would be worried, that high-intensity supersonic drilling kind of worry that he barely let himself notice, that went through Hisoka’s head like a jack-hammer... Hisoka forced himself to keep hurrying. Damn it, he thought, I’m going to spend the rest of my day fighting other people’s emotions, and they’re barely managing them individually-- what the hell do I do with all of them at once? How am I supposed to do my job if I’m spending all my time on their feelings?   
  
“Careful, son,” a gravely voice said, just ahead of him. “Better watch where you’re going. You want to make it there in one piece, don’t you?”   
  
Hisoka skidded to a stop. “Yin-san,” he said, and the “san” wasn’t really appropriate, but he was too startled by her appearance to notice. I didn’t sense her, he thought. Am I that wrapped up in all this? The cleaning woman stood in front of him, looking up at him from her mop and bucket, expression indecipherable. “Excuse me.”  
  
“Sure thing,” she said, wheeling the bucket out of his way. She took a final swipe at the floor, and plunged the mop back into the soapy water with a satisfied swish. She smiled, looking down at the floor. “That’s better, don’t you think?”  
  
Hisoka spared it a glance. That patch of floor was, indeed, sparkling. He frowned at the rest of it, covered in footprints, cherry-blossoms tracked in and ground into the marble, mud and dust. “Sure,” he said politely.  
  
“Yep,” the cleaning-lady said. “Just keep my nose down, look at this little bit I’ve been set to do. No point in worrying about the rest of it, right? After all, I won’t have to see it at all if I don’t lift my head.”  
  
Hisoka’s frown deepened. I still can’t sense her, he thought, even though she’s right in front of me.  
  
“Hey, kid!” Watari waved at him, sweeping down the hallway toward the Juoh-Cho offices. “Where’s Tsuzuki?”  
  
“Not here yet,” Hisoka called back. The cleaning-lady clucked her tongue and started to wheel the bucket away. The water sloshed oddly, and Hisoka could have sworn the lights reflected in it looked like lotus blossoms. She hummed, walking away, and Watari arrived in front of him.   
  
“I can see that,” Watari said, glad to see him. “He’s on his way, though?”   
  
Hisoka nodded. The cleaning-lady turned around a corner, disappearing from view. “Watari-san, do you know her?”  
  
“Who?” Watari asked. “The cleaning-lady? No.” He gave it a moment’s attention. “Most of the cleaning staff are condemned souls, though, aren’t they? Working off whatever they did when they were alive. Couple centuries of this, and they get to be reborn as a slug. Though slugs have a very interesting life-cycle, come to think of it. But.” He studied Hisoka, observing quickly and carefully. “How are you this morning?”  
  
Hisoka shrugged. “Fine.”   
  
“Mm,” Watari said. “Good.” He smiled. “Well, come on-- time’s wasting.” He went on, amusement flickering. “So, what did you want to leave Tsuzuki for? Wouldn’t it have been easier to come in with him?”   
  
Hisoka glared. “Excuse me?”  
  
“Oh...” The scientist smirked. “Nothing.”   
  
Hisoka frowned, unnerved. He turned toward the huge lobby doors a moment before they opened. “Tsuzuki! Hurry up!”   
  
“Okay, okay...” The doors swung shut, and Hisoka took the moment to study his partner. Wow, he thought. Tsuzuki was barely recognizable from yesterday. He was moving quickly, purposefully. He looked absolutely organized, ready for anything. Almost combat-fast... can he keep that up, Hisoka wondered? Tsuzuki smiled briefly at Hisoka, but quickly turned to Watari. “Where is he?”  
  
“The same place,” Watari said. “He didn’t leave for long. Guess he’s got the lease paid up for a year-- not in his name, though, I checked. But it looks like he’s shielded it much, much more strongly. It’ll be complicated to get through...”  
  
“We’ll manage,” Tsuzuki said, heading toward the offices without stopping. “Is the shield tied into a physical barrier, or is it just magical?”  
  
Watari blinked, then grinned, falling into Tsuzuki’s wake. “I’m not sure from a distance--”  
  
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “Then we’ll go find out. Ready, Hisoka?”  
  
“Ah,” Hisoka said, “shouldn’t we check in first?” He felt five steps behind, needing all his attention just to keep up. He’d never seen Tsuzuki like this, he thought. He’d seen his partner’s feats of deduction, his sudden spurts of competence-- more than competence, much more-- but this was astonishing. What happened? he wondered. It’s not just Muraki-- I’m only catching bits of fear and anger, in passing. This is just urgency. And it’s almost overwhelming.   
  
“I guess,” Tsuzuki said. “It’ll slow us down, though...” He paused in front of the office door. “And the Chief took us off Muraki’s case...”  
  
“So don’t tell him,” Watari said. “They can’t say no if you don’t ask permission.”  
  
Tsuzuki brightened. “That’s true.”  
  
“Wait a minute,” Hisoka put in. “You can’t just not mention it.”  
  
Tsuzuki winked. “Of course I can,” he said, and opened the door.   
  
Every head in the office turned, and kept watching him. “Good morning,” Tatsumi said, his fear crashing and neatly contained. “Glad you two could make it.”   
  
“Good morning.” Hisoka slipped through the doorway. Wakaba waved at him. Terazuma didn’t. “I’m very sorry I’m late, Tatsumi-san.”   
  
Tatsumi nodded, and the jealous flare was well tamped-down, mostly covered by relief. “I’m sure you won’t let it happen again,” he said. “Tsuzuki-san,” he said, “welcome back.” He was trying for sarcasm, a reprimand. He didn’t manage it.   
  
Tsuzuki smiled at him, hand behind his head. “Morning, Tatsumi.” He stretched, essaying a yawn, and Hisoka suppressed a gape at his partner’s acting skills. “Boy, am I zonked. We don’t have any new cases, do we?”  
  
“No, Tsuzuki-san,” Tatsumi said, feeling far less impressed than Hisoka. He pushed up his glasses. “We’re going to go to Yokohama.”  
  
Tsuzuki’s casual expression slipped. “Huh?”   
  
Hisoka blinked. “Tatsumi-san-- you’re coming with us?”  
  
“We all are.” Wakaba sounded hesitant, but determined.   
  
Tsuzuki looked at her. “What?”  
  
Terazuma snorted. “What, you’ve gone deaf, too?”  
  
Wakaba went on, smiling shyly. “We talked it over, Tsuzuki-san. We thought-- well, this Muraki, he’s tough, but he can’t be tough enough to fight six shinigami at once. Right?”  
  
Tsuzuki looked stunned. “But you...”  
  
“Besides,” Watari said, “I’ve been thinking about it ever since yesterday, and I’ve got a few hypotheses about how he manages to disappear like that. So I think we just might be able to corner him, if we tried.”   
  
“And at that point,” Tatsumi said, his smile fierce and relishing its ferocity, “we shall see just how good he is at returning from the dead.”  
  
Hisoka’s breath caught. For us? he thought. Though I suppose it is most efficient to do it this way. After all, Muraki has been causing problems for the whole division, not just us. But he couldn’t quite manage to persuade himself that it was just practical, not when he felt the warm determination beaming from the shinigami in front of them.  
  
Tsuzuki blinked, inches from tearing up. “I don’t know-- it’s kind of insulting that you all don’t think we can handle him...”  
  
“Oh, not just think,” Terazuma said. “We’re sure you can’t. That’s why we’re going.” He sighed. “We had enough trouble covering for you the last time you two got laid up, Tsuzuki. Like hell we’re gonna let _that_ happen again.”   
  
“So that settles it,” Tatsumi said. “We will go as soon as you’re ready, Tsuzuki-san. And he will not harm another member of this division.” He met Tsuzuki’s eyes, and it sounded like an oath. “Ever again.”   
  
“Oh,” Tsuzuki said, and Hisoka could have teared up himself at the wave of astonished homecoming flowing through his partner. He wanted to bask in it. Tsuzuki didn’t give him the chance-- just stood back, trenchcoat flaring. “Well, let’s go then.” His face was fierce, determined. “Let’s get the bastard.”  
  
“Absolutely,” Watari said. “Let me grab my notes-- yeah.” He grinned. “This should be interesting.”   
  
“Indeed,” Tatsumi said, and fell into place at Tsuzuki’s left side. Hisoka was already at his right, and Wakaba and Terazuma bounded and swaggered out of their seats to follow. Tsuzuki’s trenchcoat flapped behind him as they headed for the door together.  
  
The door opened in front of them, and Konoe stepped back. “What the--?”  
  
“Excuse us, sir,” Tatsumi said, stepping forward. “As I detailed in my memo earlier this morning, we feel that it would be most effective to attack Muraki-sensei as a group. We think we’ll have better results than trying it in pairs.”   
  
“Ah,” Konoe said, and Hisoka couldn’t understand why that made him so miserable. “Well, you can all just go back in there and sit down.”  
  
What? Hisoka wondered. “Chief?”   
  
Konoe sighed. “We’re not dealing with Muraki any more,” he said.   
  
There was a mutter. “Sir,” Tatsumi said, “now that we know where Muraki is, we can hardly just let it go. Muraki has disrupted the cycle of reincarnation-- he’s attacked JuOhCho employees-- he’s clearly a threat--”  
  
“And he’s off-limits,” Konoe snapped. “I have orders from a higher office.” He made his way through the crowd, leaning against a desk. “We are not to pursue Muraki any further.”  
  
“But,” Tsuzuki protested, “why not? He’s a murderer! He’s dangerous!”  
  
So tired, Hisoka thought. Konoe-san feels so tired. “Yes, he is,” the Chief sighed. He met Tsuzuki’s eyes. “And he’s a Ministry employee.”


	9. Chapter Eight

Everyone stared at him.   
  
Finally, Tsuzuki managed a _“What_?”  
  
Konoe sank into Tsuzuki’s chair, sighing heavily. “He’s an angel. He always has been. We just haven’t known it.”   
  
“No,” Hisoka spat. “No, he isn’t. I would know. He is _not_.”  
  
Tsuzuki winced. “Hisoka...”  
  
Hisoka slammed his hands down on Tsuzuki’s desk. “He’s a murdering psychopath!”   
  
“Yes,” Konoe said. “How many angels do you know, Kurosaki-kun? Being a murdering psychopath doesn’t disqualify you for the job.” He sighed. “It’s usually the opposite.”  
  
“But sir,” Tatsumi said, and the rage was actually visible in his face, “even if he were employed by the Main Office, he’s acted intolerably. He’s attacked members of this department. He nearly killed them.”   
  
“He did kill Tagami,” Konoe pointed out, almost wryly.   
  
“Exactly,” Tatsumi said. “Is the Ministry really willing to let that go on?”  
  
“Apparently,” Konoe said, “yes.” He sighed. “He’s not part of Enma-cho, after all-- he’s part of the Nyorai-cho. So even Lord Enma doesn’t have much say in the matter.” He frowned, not angry at them, just angry. “They told me Muraki’s been reprimanded, but since he doesn’t seem to know he’s an employee most of the time, it doesn’t work too well.”  
  
Everyone stared again. “He doesn’t know?” Wakaba asked.  
  
“He doesn’t seem to care,” Konoe said. “I don’t understand it myself, but I was told that he doesn’t report in, and half the time, when he’s approached by one of his superiors, he just shoots the messenger.” He sighed. “Or fries them.”   
  
“Well,” Hisoka snarled, “he is out of his fucking mind. Maybe that has something to do with it.”   
  
He felt most people being startled by his language, maybe by his rage. It didn’t feel excessive to him. Or to Tsuzuki, who stood with clenched fists, eyes burning.   
  
Konoe cleared his throat. “It might. It doesn’t seem to interfere with his work, much.”   
  
“His _work_?” Tsuzuki exploded. “He tortures and kills people! He hunts them like animals! That’s work?”  
  
“Well,” Watari said, slowly, “for an angel...”  
  
Hisoka turned on him, furious. “What do you know about it?”  
  
“Not much, not much,” Watari said, putting up his hands. “But I’ve talked to people working for the other Ministries, and the angels...” He shivered. “I wouldn’t want their job.”  
  
“I don’t care about their job,” Hisoka said. “He-- he attacked us. We were trying to do our jobs, and he...”  
  
“Actually,” the Chief said, “the Justice Department representative says that he was counterattacking.”   
  
“Counterattacking?” Tsuzuki argued. “He kidnapped Hisoka and nearly bled him to death! He blew up the ship we were on! He...” He trailed off.  
  
“You were interfering with his assignments,” Konoe said.   
  
“His _assignments_?” There was light flickering around the edges of Hisoka’s vision, and his coworkers seemed to be staring at him, and he didn’t care. “He _killed_ me. He tortured me for _three years,_ and then I _died_.” He could feel the power surging, could feel someone’s near-overwhelming emotions, and he didn’t know whose they were, but they made his voice broken. “That was an _assignment_?”  
  
“Hisoka-kun...” Wakaba put in hesitantly.  
  
“Um...” Watari said, “Maybe we should try to calm down and discuss this ra--”  
  
“ _Calm down_?” Hisoka snarled, and there was a flash of light surging toward Watari. Hisoka got one glance at Watari’s startled face before a tendril of shadow knocked the scientist to the floor and the flash hit the back wall, setting the plastic sign-out board aflame. Another flash nearly hit the Chief and Hisoka didn’t care, wanted to do it again, but everyone was ducking out of the way-- except Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki was standing in front of him, reaching out to grab his shoulders, to look deep into his eyes.  
  
“Hisoka,” Tsuzuki said, voice full of love and urgency, “you’re going to blow up the office.” His eyes were serious. “And then they’ll dock your pay for _decades_.”   
  
Hisoka felt the power flow out of him. “But he--” He was going to start crying, here, in the office, out of pure shocked frustration, and he could not stand that humiliation, but the tears were coming, “But we need to get him...”  
  
“Yeah,” Tsuzuki said. “But if you blow up the building first, you’ll have to waste _more_ time to get yelled at. You’d probably have to wait until Tatsumi had time to assess the whole place for damages. It’s very annoying.”  
  
Hisoka stared at him. That, he thought, is the most idiotic logic I’ve ever heard. “You’d know all about ‘annoying,’ huh?”  
  
“You bet,” Tsuzuki said, and Hisoka found that he could breathe again. He closed his eyes, summoning calm, not sure where he was finding it, because there wasn’t any in the room.  
  
“There must be some mistake,” Tatsumi said, quietly fierce. “The Ministry can’t treat its employees like this.”   
  
“There’s no mistake,” Konoe said, brushing himself off. He stood up. “Sit down, all of you. Terazuma-- is Watari all right?”  
  
“Fine,” the scientist said, picking himself up. “Thanks, Tatsumi.” He smiled at the shadowmaster, who nodded, a shadow creeping out to smother the flames behind him. Watari cocked his head at Hisoka. “Haven’t seen you do that in a while, kid.”  
  
Hisoka stared. “I-- I’ve only done it twice. I didn’t mean to aim at you, Watari-san. Chief.” He couldn’t meet their eyes. “I lost control.”  
  
“So don’t do it again,” Konoe said. “Sit down, Kurosaki-kun.”  
  
Hisoka sat, shaking. Tsuzuki pulled up a chair next to him, and Hisoka put out a hand in the space between the seats, hidden by the folds of Tsuzuki’s trenchcoat. Tsuzuki took it immediately, squeezing tight. Hisoka held on, trying not to think too hard.   
  
“But,” Wakaba said, very quietly. “I guess I still don’t understand.” She smiled a cute, confused smile. “How can doing that to people be part of the Justice Department?”  
  
“It’s a good question,” Konoe said. “Tatsumi, you know the answer to that one-- why don’t you explain?”   
  
Tatsumi frowned, pushing up his glasses. “Muraki can’t be explained that easily,” he said, almost a snarl.   
  
“Forget Muraki,” Konoe growled, getting back some of his usual gruffness. “She asked about the Justice Department.” He pointed at Tatsumi, “So quit snapping and tell her about the Justice Department.”  
  
Wakaba looked dismayed to be the source of further tension. Terazuma glared at Tatsumi. Tatsumi spoke, the words sounding forced and stiff. “Enma-cho is not the only Ministry-- only the one in charge of the afterlife. There are many different Ministries, all under the control of the Main Office. Nyorai-cho is in charge of overseeing the fate of each individual. The Justice Department is only one department within that Ministry, as the Summons Department is within Enma-cho.” Tatsumi’s voice steadied as he spoke, falling into the lecture. Hisoka could feel the slight ebb of his tension, the rest of them easing slightly, the office becoming slightly less supersaturated with emotion. He didn’t feel any better, himself. “It is the job of the Justice Department to keep track of each soul’s deeds during each lifetime. Enma-cho communicates often with them, as they must tell the Judgment Bureau the state of the soul’s karma. Then the Judgment Bureau assigns the soul either to an afterlife or to Enma-cho’s Reincarnation Department. We in the Summons Department, of course, make sure that the soul arrives in order to receive judgment, without regard to what the soul has done previously, so karma is of no interest to us.”   
  
Tsuzuki’s hand tightened on Hisoka’s. He’s not an angel, Hisoka thought. He can’t be. It makes no sense. No.  
  
“Keep going,” Konoe said. “What about the angels?”  
  
Tatsumi took a deep breath. “On some occasions, a soul’s karma is ambiguous, so that if that person’s life continues unchanged, the Justice Department won’t be easily able to decide where the soul should be assigned after death. In those cases, an angel will be sent to... interfere.” Light glinted off his glasses, hiding his eyes. “The angel presents that person with a choice, and how he or she chooses makes a major change in his or her karma. The change is usually definitive enough to determine the course of that soul’s next dozen lives-- or its damnation or salvation.” He exhaled brokenly. “Ah.”  
  
Tsuzuki shifted. “Tatsumi...?”  
  
Tatsumi stood straight up, arms at his sides. “I... I begin to see. I’m sorry, Tsuzuki-san... but I think the Chief is right.”  
  
“I don’t see,” Hisoka snapped. “What choice?”  
  
“No,” Watari said (keeping the desk between him and Hisoka), “that does make sense.” He grabbed a piece of paper, starting to scribble names. “That makes perfect sense.”   
  
“It does?” Terazuma asked. “How?”  
  
“Well...” Watari said, “think of the last time we saw Muraki, in Kyoto. That researcher, Saotome-sensei-- he was working with Muraki on his research. I think he didn’t realize until I told him that Muraki was killing people to get him samples-- but once he did, he must have had to decide whether or not he was going to keep doing that. Whether he was so devoted to his research that he didn’t care who suffered for it.” He nodded emphatically. “That fits.”   
  
“It all fits,” Tatsumi said heavily. “Back on the _Queen Camellia_ \-- your report said that Kakyoin-san let Muraki dissect people to find a heart to replace his daughter’s, didn’t you? So he chose to murder others to save her.”   
  
Hisoka felt terribly detached from his body, as if he were looking through a tunnel. His voice sounded very far away. “You’re saying that he did that as some kind of test. You’re saying he killed Tsubaki-hime,” made me kill Tsubaki-hime, “to _help_ her father’s karma? You’re saying that something _good_ came out of all that?”  
  
He felt the room catch its breath. “Not just her father’s karma, Kurosaki-kun,” Konoe said, “hers, too. She chose justice over her own life, didn’t she? And to forgive the people who made her choose that. She’ll do well, next time around.” Konoe bit the words out. “Sometimes, people are better off because of him, in the long run. And sometimes he gets them damned, but it’s their own actions that do that. He just presents the choice, to everyone he’s ever come in contact with. It’s what he is.”   
  
“No,” Tsuzuki said. “That’s not right, Chief. Tatsumi...” His eyes were wide, pleading. “We would have known. Wouldn’t we have known? Wouldn’t someone have told us?”  
  
Tatsumi couldn’t say it. “They work undercover,” Konoe said. “There would be no reason to tell us.”  
  
“Because he was working on _us_ ,” Hisoka said. “Is that it? He killed people in front of us-- tortured us-- _killed_ me-- for our own good? To give us a _choice_?” He had thought he’d come to the deepest part of his hatred for Muraki. He’d been wrong. “I never asked for that. I never wanted that.” No-one said anything. Tsuzuki’s hand on his was desperately tight, almost painful if he hadn’t been gripping back just as hard. “I can’t accept that.”   
  
“All right, Kurosaki-kun,” Konoe said. “You don’t have to accept it.” He stood up. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to terminate the Muraki case.”  
  
Tsuzuki paled. “But Chief-- the baby!”  
  
Konoe steeled himself. “Is not your concern. He’s alive. He’s supposed to be. It’s nothing to do with us.”   
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “We can’t leave him there to be tortured!”   
  
“Yes,” Konoe said. “you can. Tsuzuki, Kurosaki, you are _not_ going to get deeper into this. None of you are,” he added, glaring around the room. “The Nyorai-cho has a tremendous political advantage over us-- and from what I was told, Muraki’s one of the Justice Department’s high-ranking agents. We can’t stand against them. Even Lord Enma can’t protect someone who attacks an angel. Do you understand me?” He slapped a hand on the desk. “Tsuzuki!”  
  
“But he’s--”  
  
“Tsuzuki! Do you understand?”   
  
There was a long pause. “Whatever you say, Chief,” Tsuzuki said.   
  
Konoe frowned, but didn’t pursue it. “Kurosaki?”  
  
Hisoka shook. “You want me to just go back to work. Forget all of this, and pretend it’s a normal day.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
Hisoka raised his head, and he could feel the Chief wince backwards, burned by the cold of his eyes. “All right.”   
  
Konoe cleared his throat. “All right. Then get moving, all of you! Do you think I’m paying you just to stand around?” His voice did not quite tremble. “Is this an office or a tea ceremony? Get going!” He turned away, heading for his own office. The door slammed behind him.  
  
There was a long silence.  
  
“There must be some mistake,” Tatsumi said. “We’ve fought Muraki before-- why wouldn’t we have been informed then? Why would they wait until now?” He crossed his arms, thoughtful. “Watari-- is it possible that this is a hoax?”   
  
Watari didn’t feel hopeful. “It might be. We know Muraki was getting into the Reincarnation Department’s computers-- maybe he got into Nyorai-cho’s the same way?” He put a hand to the back of his head, frowning. “I could check their firewalls, see what I come up with...”  
  
Tatsumi nodded. “Good idea.”   
  
“No,” Hisoka said.   
  
Everyone looked at him. He avoided their eyes. “Konoe-kaichou thought of that. He already did everything he could to argue it, but he got his orders in person-- probably from Lord Enma. He felt so frustrated I’m impressed he could still talk rationally. There’s no mistake.” Hisoka sat very straight, hands in fists. “He was telling the truth.”   
  
Tatsumi frowned. “Are you sure, Kurosaki-kun?”  
  
Hisoka glared. “Yes.”   
  
Terazuma sighed. “So you have to drop your vendetta. It’s not part of your job, anyway.” He looked almost sympathetic for a moment. “Too bad. But still-- you’d better let it go. It’ll just get in your way.”   
  
The only thing I cared about, Hisoka thought, the only thing I stayed for, before Tsuzuki, and you want me to just let it go? No. I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t deal with this now, I...   
  
Hisoka took a deep breath. “Right.” He stood up, slowly, deliberately. “Let’s get back to work.” He looked down at his partner and winced, because Tsuzuki wasn’t listening to him. Tsuzuki was barely there, right now. Wherever his thoughts had taken him, it was far away, and it was fiery. “Hey, Tsuzuki.”  
  
“Mm,” Tsuzuki said, and went to his own desk, where he spent the rest of the morning folding origami birds.   
  
Hisoka didn’t bother him. He spent the rest of his morning acting perfectly fine. Maybe not perfectly. His coworkers gave him a wide berth, and he kept catching the feeling that they were seeing a ghost-- the ghost of himself, almost three years ago, before he’d learned ease with them. He was cooly, detachedly, furiously efficient all morning, and he managed to block every thought with -- later. I’m at work. I’m thinking about this report. Later.  
  
And then the morning was over, and he was poking Tsuzuki in the shoulder, saying, “Hey. It’s lunchtime.”  
  
Tsuzuki didn’t look up. “All right,” he said, and Hisoka could hear the roaring of flames under his voice. “Where do you want to go?”  
  
He’d almost developed a fear of fire, Hisoka remembered, nearly a year ago in Kyoto. It hadn’t bothered him lately. But right now, he looked down at his partner’s bent head, and before he could stop himself, he heard himself projecting, _home. I want to go home._  
  
Tsuzuki’s hands stilled on the folded paper. “All right,” he said, looking up at Hisoka. He stood, and his smile was still his smile, even with this holocaust behind it. “Let’s go home.”   
  
Hisoka nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and headed out the office door.  
  
They were silent as they walked through the halls, Tsuzuki answering coworkers’ greetings with a vague wave. The cherry trees were turning white, as they did every few months before growing new pink petals, and Hisoka thought they looked like snow. He felt like winter, himself. It can’t be, he thought, and shuddered.  
  
Tsuzuki put a hand on his shoulder. “Hisoka?”  
  
“Nothing,” Hisoka said.  
  
“Hisoka...”  
  
Hisoka kept walking, the falls of petals dancing down around him. “I hate him,” he said. “I’ve been hating him for almost three years. What he did to me-- that was unforgivable. What he did to you was worse.” He caught Tsuzuki’s disagreement with that, didn’t bother to argue it, as Tsuzuki didn’t bother to say it aloud. “How could it have been justice? How could it have been for our benefit? What did we get from it, except nightmares?” His hands were buried deep in his pockets, fists clenched. Tsuzuki said nothing. Hisoka went on. “I never prayed to the gods, when I was alive. I didn’t see the point. And I didn’t think much about them when I died. But...” There was no-one around except the two of them. “Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that they’d let that happen to us. But... I didn’t think they’d be the ones to _do_ it.”   
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsuzuki said.   
  
Hisoka turned to look at him. It wasn’t the words-- he’d heard those before. It was the tone behind them. The resolution. “Why not?”  
  
Tsuzuki slowed. “Because even if they’re gods-- they can’t do that.” His voice was measured, resolved. “I won’t leave him there to be tortured. I won’t. What could a baby have done, that he deserves to be hurt like that? It makes no sense.” He met Hisoka’s eyes, and the passion in them was almost enough to consume them both. “What choice can a baby make? He’s so helpless-- how can that affect his karma? What choices does he have except to cry or be quiet?” He sounded almost calm. “That’s not right.”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said, “it isn’t.” He paused, thinking. “But Muraki won’t let us just take him. He was so focused on him-- he barely saw anything else. He’ll fight.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsuzuki said. “We’re stronger than he is. If we try.”   
  
Hisoka blinked. “Tsuzuki...”  
  
“It’s true,” Tsuzuki said. “You were right, Hisoka.” He sighed. “Even if Muraki is justice, for us, even if he is what I-- even if he were justice-- he isn’t for that child. It’s not right. And I’m not going to let it go on.”   
  
Hisoka almost smiled. There was so much strength behind Tsuzuki’s words, so much determination. There he is, he thought. He’s really here. “No,” he said. “So we stop it.”  
  
Tsuzuki met his eyes, and Hisoka felt the oddest surge of pride in himself, knew it was Tsuzuki’s. “Exactly,” Tsuzuki said. “After lunch, we’ll go back down there and do this right. No holding back.”   
  
Kill him, Hisoka heard, and nodded. I’ve always wanted to kill him, he thought. That desire was what I lived on, what I breathed, what I pulled up over me when I slept. And now... we’re going to go do it. “We’ll need to come up with a reason to tell them.”  
  
Tsuzuki frowned. “Reason?”   
  
“To explain why we’re doing this, officially,” Hisoka said. “Or they won’t let us.”   
  
“Ah,” Tsuzuki said. “Hisoka... they don’t want to let us. You heard Konoe, didn’t you? This will get us in trouble with the Main Office. Real trouble. It might lose us our jobs.”   
  
Hisoka frowned. “So we’ll find a way around that.”  
  
Tsuzuki was watching the petals fall. “Hisoka?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“I hate our jobs.”  
  
Hisoka took a deep breath. “Tsuzuki...”  
  
“But I do,” Tsuzuki said. “I hate the paperwork. I hate getting yelled at. I hate...” He turned away, hair blowing across his eyes. “It’s a murderer’s job. We do nothing but kill and destroy. And we get paid for it.” A momentary smile flashed across his face. “Badly.” The humor faded. “I don’t want to do it any more, Hisoka.”  
  
Hisoka was starting to feel a chill again. “But they won’t just fire us,” he said. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go. We’re dead. We’d have to be judged. And...” he hesitated. “If we kill a member of another department-- that’s a capital crime, isn’t it? Lord Enma would have to send us to Hell. He wouldn’t have a choice.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsuzuki said.  
  
“Yes,” Hisoka said, “it does.” He stepped back, sudden furious speculation growing. “Tsuzuki, you’re trying to die again.”  
  
Tsuzuki frowned. “That’s not it.”  
  
“Yes, it is,” Hisoka said. “If we kill Muraki, and they sentence us to Hell, our lives will be over. They’ll torture us until we forget our own names. How is that not dying?”  
  
“But at least it’s a choice,” Tsuzuki said.   
  
“It’s choosing to die!”  
  
“What makes you think I’m not dying now?”   
  
Hisoka glared. “That doesn’t make any se--”  
  
“Yes, it does,” Tsuzuki said, and Hisoka didn’t recognize this voice. It wasn’t sobbing. It wasn’t cajoling. It was simply saying, “I die every day, at this job. Every assignment we go on. Every person we kill, every time somebody’s hurt because of me-- I don’t want that. I never wanted that. It’s not-- not what I want to be.” He sighed, and Hisoka could feel a tiny distance growing larger. “You’re young, you don’t know, but I’ve been doing this for almost a hundred years, Hisoka. And every day, I’m older. And every day, I’m less the person I thought I was.” He closed his eyes. “I remember who I was before I died. That person would never have agreed to spend eternity killing innocent people. And one of these days, I’m going to wake up, and he’ll be gone completely. And all that will be here is this husk, this murderer with his face.” He opened his eyes, and Hisoka remembered thinking how beautiful they were. “You don’t love the husk, Hisoka. You can’t. Nobody could. You love him-- that person from long ago. And if I stay here too long, there’ll be nothing left to love.”  
  
“Stop it,” Hisoka said. “Don’t tell me what I love. You don’t know that. You can’t read my mind.” There was a roaring panic in his mind, and all he could think was that he had to find the right words, or he’d lose him again. “And this idea is ridiculous, anyway. If Muraki is an angel, if that is how the gods work, then what difference will it make? There’ll just be someone else after him. What good is it for us to sacrifice ourselves to take him out, when he’ll just be replaced? It’s useless.”  
  
“Not to that baby,” Tsuzuki said. “He doesn’t deserve Muraki. If we can just save him, it’ll be worth it.” And the conviction was still there, Hisoka felt, that warm belief in the rightness of this cause. He paused, though. “But, Hisoka... you’re right, about Hell. You don’t have to do that, if you don’t want to-- I wouldn’t ask you to.” He tossed Hisoka a smile. “Just cover for me when I go...”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Hisoka said, grabbing Tsuzuki by the shoulders. He threw himself against him full-length, making that contact physical, present-- remember this? “No.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed, his arms around Hisoka, his cheek resting on his partner’s head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to... but I can’t let this go on, Hisoka. I have to do this. I want to remember who I am. Do you know what I mean?”  
  
“You’re leaving,” Hisoka said. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me alone. You swore it. You swore.” His voice was broken, now, his vision would be blurry if his eyes weren’t screwed shut, he was clinging so hard it hurt. “I need you with me. Tsuzuki, I can’t-- there’s no point without you. I love you.” He was holding him so tightly, he had to hold onto him. He had to. “Don’t leave me.”  
  
“I--” Tsuzuki said. “I’m not. It’s not you, I don’t-- he’s suffering, Hisoka. Muraki’s torturing him.”  
  
“I don’t care,” Hisoka said wildly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. I just care about you. I need you. Tsuzuki, please, please don’t go, please don’t leave me alone again, please...”   
  
Tsuzuki went very still. Then something broke. Hisoka could feel it break, like the crack! through a burning branch as it falls apart into ash. Tsuzuki hesitated. “Hisoka...”  
  
Hisoka held on. “Please. I love you. Stay.”   
  
And then there were only ashes where the resolution had been. Tsuzuki sighed, a very long letting-go. “All right,” he said. “All right. I’ll stay. I promised.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Hisoka. I didn’t mean to scare you. Don’t worry.” He pulled away enough to show Hisoka a smile. “Guess it was stupid, anyway-- Muraki probably would have taken me out without a blink, anyway, huh?”   
  
Loss, Hisoka could feel loss whirling, but he wasn’t sure whether it was the disaster just averted or something else. “Maybe not,” he said quietly.  
  
“Maybe,” Tsuzuki said. “Guess we’ll never know.”  
  
Hisoka pulled away-- they were on a public path, after all. “What do you want for lunch?” he asked.  
  
Tsuzuki tried. Hisoka could feel him try, could feel the effort. He didn’t manage. “Actually... I’m not really hungry right now.”   
  
Hisoka stared at him. “Not hungry? You?”  
  
Tsuzuki’s smile hurt. “Weird, huh? But no. You go on without me.”  
  
Hisoka hesitated, uncertain. “Tsuzuki, are you sure--”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Tsuzuki... snapped. That was a snap, and it was so unusual coming from him that Hisoka gasped. Tsuzuki met his stare, and the guilt about being angry didn’t seem to mute the anger any-- just twisted it in his gut. Tsuzuki looked away. “I’ll see you back in the office.”  
  
Hisoka felt his arms wrapped around himself, felt himself shivering. “After lunch.”  
  
“Yes,” Tsuzuki sighed and turned away, walking quickly. Hisoka could feel his jagged emotions tearing at him long after he vanished between the trees.  
  
What was that? Hisoka wondered, shaking. He found a bench and sank into it, knees weak under him. It was like Kyoto, like the fire. But it feels so different. So much worse. He leaned forward, arms crossed on his knees, head down. I held him then, he thought, and he was so glad to be held. So surprised. Like he had no idea he could be loved. I don’t understand how this is different. I said the same thing. I meant the same thing. But he’s so hurt. Hisoka was surprised that he was shivering in the breeze-- it wasn’t that chilly today, was it? Wasn’t it the same spring it always was? I didn’t mean to hurt him, he thought. I never meant to hurt him. I don’t understand how that hurt him. I don’t understand.   
  
I hate dealing with people. I hate needing people. They never make any sense.   
  
He ate a curry in his apartment, half-listening and sensing for Tsuzuki at the door. He didn’t come.  
  
Hisoka went back to the office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Godai Nyorai are five emanations of the absolute Buddha, whose function is to bring people closer to ultimate enlightenment by freeing them of various distracting states (ignorance, anger, pride, etc.). In this universe, they run the department which is in charge of karma in all its aspects, in all the various states of existence. There are four major categories celestial being in Buddhism: Nyorai (Buddhas), Boddhisattvas (extremely powerful, high-ranking souls who achieved enlightenment but chose to remain themselves in order to help others achieve enlightenment), Myo-O (Wisdom Kings, those who serve and protect the Nyorai) or Tenbu (devas--Hindu deities and other entities who converted to Buddhism and were adopted into the Japanese Buddhist pantheon). Enma is one of these, a Tenbu, and as such, would be approximately on the same level as Muraki-- not Muraki's department, but Muraki himself.


	10. Chapter Nine

The office was quiet when Hisoka arrived-- the others seemed to have made themselves scarce, for the most part, and those who remained didn’t say much to him. The damage he’d inflicted was gone, the scorched patch of wall painted over. A new sign-out board hung by the door showed that Tsuzuki had returned, signed in, and gone-- well, his handwriting proclaimed he’d gone to the library, but Hisoka doubted it. The cafeteria, maybe, or the tables under the sakura outside. He was reassured by the evidence of his partner’s written name, anyway. And he was, he had to admit, a little relieved he didn’t have to actually see him. It would make it hard to concentrate, he thought.   
  
Not that he seemed to be having much success in that direction anyway. Hisoka stared at his desk, trying to remember what he’d been working on that morning. He had no idea. He sighed and flipped on his computer to check for email. Surprisingly, his inbox showed a new message-- something must have come in over lunch. He moved the cursor down to open it.  
  
  
Date: May 16, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@shinigami.enma.net  
From: Fukou@reincarnation.enma.net  
Subject: okay you win  
  
Soka--  
  
Allright allright allright. You wnat to know so badly-- who am I to say no? Besides I was doing some of the research just to satiisfy my own curiousity and I found some interesting stuff.   
  
I’ll meet you in Hokkaido this afternoon at the Kumpusha Inn in Biei. I’ll be thjere at 1:30-- if you dont show up by 3 I’ll figure you changed your mind.  
  
See you soon.  
  
 ** _\--Fukou_**  
  
Hisoka stared at the glowing letters, then checked the clock. A little after one twenty-- he’d have to hurry. He didn’t really have time to track down Tsuzuki or someone else to let them know where he was going. It didn’t seem to matter that much.  
  
He wrote “on assignment” neatly on the board next to his name, and headed out.  
  
Even in May, Hokkaido didn’t seem to have noticed that it was spring. Hisoka shivered, his light jacket no defense against the bitter winds and driving rain. It didn’t help that the map he’d brought was horribly confusing, even when it wasn’t blowing shut and ripping in the wind. Hisoka swore.  
  
“That you, Souka?” came a voice from the wind.   
  
Hisoka spun, seeing no-one, feeling-- something indistinct. “Who’s there?”  
  
A passing shower of rain seemed to coalesce, almost into a grin. “You took your sweet time,” it said, “I was wondering whether you were coming.” The rain danced around Hisoka, a shocking sheet of it splashing down the back of his neck and covering his head. “Whoops.”   
  
“Fukou?” Hisoka demanded. “Where are you?”  
  
“Up that hill,” the wind said, drifting uninterestedly across a rooftop, sending shingles spinning. “Go... lessee... all the way to the end of the street and turn left. It’s low and wood and there’s blue-green umbrellas out front.” The rain trickled under Hisoka’s collar, brushing against his face in a touch far too intimate for his comfort. “Better hurry. It’s wet out there.”  
  
Hisoka glowered. He knows something, he thought. If I take his head off now, I won’t find out what. Not that he was sure it would do any good, if they were off the case-- but. Still. He hurried into the bar.  
  
The inn itself was warm and dark, and it took Hisoka’s eyes a moment to adjust. Fukou didn’t give him that moment. “Over here, Souka!” he called. Today, Hisoka noticed, he’d added a conical straw hat to his outfit, tossed jauntily over his shoulder. He grinned, waving Hisoka over. “I got you a sake. Better hurry up and drink it before it cools down. You look half-frozen.”  
  
Hisoka made his way slowly across the creaky wooden floor, moving carefully between low tables. The room was empty, for the most part-- just Fukou sitting casually at the bar, leaning back on his stool. A hostess was busy washing dishes in the back, and she felt a note of concern about Hisoka’s apparent age, but mostly relief that someone else had come in to distract her overbearing customer. Fukou pushed a steaming cup toward him. “Come on, drink up.”  
  
“I don’t drink,” Hisoka said. “Thanks.”   
  
“You what?” Fukou’s jovial brown eyes opened almost comically wide, his mouth opening. “Gods, boy, you should. I think you could use it.”  
  
Hisoka did not glare. Carefully. “I haven’t got a head for it,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”  
  
Fukou shrugged. “Your loss,” he said. He, Hisoka noticed, had no problem keeping his head-- there were two empty bottles in front of him, and Hisoka couldn’t quite notice a difference between his mind now and back at the briefing. Of course, Hisoka thought, he might have been drunk then, too. Hard to tell. “Glad you found the place.”  
  
“That was you, out there?” Hisoka asked, feeling the rain drip down the back of his neck.   
  
“More or less,” Fukou said. “I control the wind. Used to be my big talent back when I was a shinigami. ‘S what my name means-- ‘girl of the wind.’ ‘Course, I haven’t been a girl in... what, ages now.” He grinned toothily. “More fun to be a man, you know? You get to do a lot more, if you know what I mean.”  
  
Hisoka wished he didn’t. “You said you’d found something out?” he said. “About the soul?”  
  
Fukou sighed, and his expression was so like Tsuzuki’s that Hisoka blinked, distracted. “You’re so serious,” he complained. “Honestly, if you don’t lighten up, you just drive yourself crazy, that’s so.” He smirked at his own wit.  
  
“No,” Hisoka said, “I have other people to do that for me.” He shut his mouth quickly, not having meant to snap.  
  
Fukou laughed, though. “People like me, huh? All right, all right, all right.” He tossed back a swig of his sake. “You’re really missing out here, though-- best sake in Japan.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, which looked like it had served that purpose often. “Okay. That soul.” He eyed Hisoka thoughtfully. “You ever been to Hokkaido before? I could show you around...”  
  
 _“Fukou,_ ” Hisoka snapped, “-san. I don’t have a lot of time.”   
  
Fukou grinned. “You’re immortal, kid. You’ve got all the time in the world.” He cocked his head. “How old are you, actually?”  
  
Hisoka hesitated. “Nineteen.”   
  
Fukou whistled. “Baby-face,” he said. “That’ll come in handy a few centuries down the road. If you last that long. Bet you can’t even imagine centuries yet, can you? Like Asato-kun, way back when.” He sighed. “He really wasn’t more than eighteen when he died, even if his body didn’t notice for a while. So damn young...” He sighed. “Is he doing okay?”  
  
Do you care? Hisoka managed not to snap. “He’s fine,” he said.  
  
“Yeah?” Fukou said. He took another swig, watching the hostess’ ass. “I heard some nasty rumors, last fall.”   
  
Hisoka glared at the counter. Better than looking Fukou in the eye, he didn’t think he could stand the... the _gall_ of him, sitting there, calmly saying something like that, when he... “He’s fine,” Hisoka said. “He’ll be better if I can tell him what’s going on with that soul.”  
  
For a moment, Fukou’s glare met his own. “Your charm fades,” he said. “Didn’t anyone tell you that one-note songs are dull?”  
  
The anger was sudden, a gust in the face. “No,” Hisoka said.  
  
Fukou shrugged. “Well,” he said, “you can tell me about him later. You need to know this, right now...” His eye twinkled. Hisoka wondered if some sort of illusion were involved. “Tell you what. I’ll tell you all about the soul if you’ll drink with me.”   
  
Hisoka found that his fists, in his lap, were clenched so tightly his nails were almost breaking the skin. “All right,” he said. “After you tell me.”   
  
“All right,” Fukou said, and ordered himself another sake. He leaned back in his chair, a story-teller’s ease. “Well. That soul’s had a long, long history. Few hundred lifetimes of blood, its and other people’s. Seems to have taken turns which, but this soul-- it just kept on getting nastier and nastier. Finally did something worthy of Hell last time around... but it missed being damned. And that’s what you want to know, I think.”  
  
Hisoka said nothing, just waited. He could wait. Really.  
  
Fukou stretched, shook sake from his beard, and went on. “Last time around, it was a kid named Shidou Saki. Illegitimate-- son of his mother’s psychiatrist, so you know he’s not starting off well, huh?” Hisoka shrugged. “Spent most of his childhood shipped around to relatives, bunch of nasty things happened to him-- you know the kind of thing. Kid had guts, though-- cuz nasty things started happening to his relatives right back.” Fukou sighed admiringly. “Gotta be impressed with the thing with his uncle’s eyeballs. That was a piece of work... Anyway. Guess they didn’t want to admit just how little Saki-chan got so fucked in the head, so they tracked down his father and said, here, your problem. And his dad didn’t want a scandal (not really _supposed_ to fuck your patients, you know), so he took him in without kicking up a fuss. Of course, our Saki-chan wasn’t real delighted with his dad either-- abandoned him as a baby and all-- so that didn’t last long. Took out his father and his father’s wife before anyone knew what was happening. He tried to go for his half-brother, too, but that’s where he ran into some bad luck. A Sakaki-san, one of the family servants, took him out with a rifle before he could do much more than scratch the kid.” Fukou shook his head. “Guess he never saw it coming.”  
  
Fukou stank, Hisoka thought. He’d been noticing it subliminally-- sort of an earthy, musky, feral smell, with alcohol and other things added over it-- but it was starting to bother him. He made a wonderful shinigami, I bet, Hisoka thought. Because he doesn’t care about this. Not at all. It might as well be characters in a book he’s falling asleep over. “Mm.”  
  
“Mm,” Fukou said, disappointed not to get more of a reaction to his story. “So that should have been the end of it-- go around and cycle again. But that’s where his half-brother comes in. A kid by the name of Muraki Kazutaka.” He watched Hisoka’s eyes widen and nodded, satisfied. “Thought that’d get you.”  
  
“Good for you,” Hisoka said, because being annoyed at Fukou was easier. He’d known Muraki would come into this somewhere. It should be obvious. “What happened?”   
  
“Ah,” Fukou said. “Well, it seems that our Kazutaka was a mite annoyed about his parents being murdered and all-- and he probably wasn’t too happy with what Saki-chan had been up to with him before then, either. So he’s not happy that Saki’s just dead, that easy. He should suffer, he thinks. And he comes up with the _greatest_ idea. He’s gonna get a jar, right, and he’s gonna keep his brother’s _head_ in the jar, and then he’s gonna make him a new body, and then he’s gonna kill him _again_. Properly, this time. Probably with boiling acid or something.” He raised his eyebrows at Hisoka. “Great plan, huh?”  
  
Hisoka shrugged. “Sounds like him,” he said. But he couldn’t keep from asking, “How old was he?”  
  
“Sixteen,” Fukou said. “They were both sixteen. Just about to the day.”  
  
“Oh,” Hisoka said. “Go on.”   
  
“Sure thing,” Fukou said. “Okay, so the problem with this idea is, of course, that it’s totally impossible. I mean, humans don’t know the first thing about making new bodies yet. Anything they think about cloning is... what’s that called... science-fiction. But our Kazutaka’s determined. And he’s so determined, so obsessed, so purely _furious_ , that the Justice Department hires him on the spot.” He leaned in, getting his face right up next to Hisoka’s. “It ain’t much of a visitation, mind. Just a voice, says-- ‘Hey-- you want the power to get revenge?’ And he says, ‘yeah.’” He took a swig of sake, not moving away. “Actually, he says, yeah, I’ll have revenge whether you give me power or not. I’ll have it if you take the whole world away from me. Cuz he already took my world.” Fukou raised his eyebrows. “Dramatic, huh?”  
  
“Go on,” Hisoka said, and did not shiver, not when Fukou was this close.  
  
“Dramatic,” Fukou said. “But they say nah, no worry about _that_. And they make him an angel. So when our Kazutaka goes into his dad’s office to get some supplies, he knows just what to take. And when he comes back, and cuts the head off his brother’s body (and he’s got a hell of a time explaining _that_ to the servants, but he just gives ‘em a _look_ , and they don’t say nothing else), he knows just how to do it-- just how to keep the guts or nerves or whatever they got up there all safe and unbroken. And he does some things humans haven’t invented yet, and he hooks poor little Saki-chan’s head up to some wires or something, and it’s alive again. Just about. Not alive enough to do nothing-- but enough to keep his soul in his body.” Fukou sighed. “See, that’s the whole thing. It’s not so much that Kazutaka kept the body kind of intact, it’s that he kept the soul there. And then the soul did some of the work of preserving the body. What Kazutaka did, that shouldn’t of worked, not if he wasn’t an angel. But he was an angel. And he took that power, and he kept that soul with that head.   
  
“And then he goes off to medical school. He was always gonna be a doctor, right, runs in the family-- but now he’s got _reason_. And so he’s brilliant at it. And the angelicness just kinda spills out all around him, you know, the way it does, without him meaning it or paying attention to it. He’s got all this divine energy and stuff, and it’s meant for justice and karma-managing, so it keeps hitting people. Hits you, right?”  
  
Hisoka glared. “You didn’t have to research that.”  
  
“I never have to do anything,” Fukou said easily. “But it’s interesting, huh? You’ve got the same kinda rage he does, did you know? Justice wanted to recruit you, but you didn’t get the rage ‘til you were already a shinigami.” His emotions danced, sparked, and Hisoka could feel how much he was enjoying this, how much he was hoping for a fight. “Almost a shame-- you’d have made one hell of an angel, isn’t that so? But Konoe-kun wouldn’t let them transfer you.” He sighed. “Big scandal, there-- you don’t cross the Justice department. I think Konoe-kun used up his last few favors on that one.” He grinned. “Hope you were worth it.”  
  
He wanted a fight. So did Hisoka. Rage, huh? he thought. You want to see my rage? “You said,” Hisoka said, “you’d tell me what happened to the soul.”   
  
“I did?” Fukou said. “That so? Did I say what would happen if I changed my mind?”  
  
“I’d leave,” Hisoka said. “I’d turn around and walk out. That’s what would happen.”   
  
He met Fukou’s eyes for a long moment. Finally, the half-tanuki shrugged. “And we can’t have that, can we? You still have to drink with me.” He put a hand on Hisoka’s shoulder. “You _are_ gonna drink with me, ‘Souka.”   
  
“I said I would,” Hisoka said, and the thrill of challenge behind Fukou’s words made him add, “Just drink. And talk. That’s all.”   
  
“Mm,” Fukou said. “We’ll see.”  
  
“The soul,” Hisoka said. He was not shaking. He was not. “Shidou’s soul. It’s the one Muraki’s been killing.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Fukou said. “Asato-kun brought down the big snake on the lab, burned up the head, the soul got loose, went back into the reincarnation cycle, Muraki hacked the Reincarnation Department’s computers and got it put into the clone he made from Asato-kun. So he’s got him to torture as much as he wants, and the kid just keeps healing. Done deal, Muraki’s finished as an angel-- just planning to hole up in his house and torture the kid for the rest of his life. Justice is a little snippy about it, but what’re they gonna do? That much rage, he’s stuck here-- can’t move on unless he lets it go, and he ain’t gonna let it go long as he’s got his big brother to torture.” Fukou’s hand on Hisoka’s shoulder was heavy, bearing down. “There. Now you know everything I know about it.”   
  
Somehow, Hisoka thought, I doubt that. His heart was racing, and his voice came out sharp, almost shrill. “Thank you.”   
  
“No problem,” Fukou said. He beckoned the hostess, who brought another bottle. “Now it’s your turn.” He sloshed hot sake into a cup and held it up to Hisoka. “First, drink.”  
  
Hisoka looked at the clear liquid. He could smell the fumes from here. Rotten idea, he thought. But I’m going to keep my head. He sipped at the cup, wincing at the taste.   
  
“You look like a kitten,” Fukou said. “Don’t just stick your tongue out and lap it up, boy-- drink.” He took another swig to demonstrate, and Hisoka, wincing, followed suit. “Good,” Fukou said. His tone darkened. “Now you can tell me what the hell Asato-kun was doing calling down that snake.”  
  
Hisoka glared. His head was top-heavy, he had to work to keep it balanced on his shoulders. “What the fuck do you care?” he snapped.  
  
Fukou frowned. “Why wouldn’t I care?” he asked. “We were partners.”   
  
“Partners?” Hisoka spat. “You left him. What, sixty years ago?” His face was hot, he couldn’t tell if it was with alcohol or anger, but it burned.   
  
Fukou shrugged. “I had things to do.”   
  
Hisoka sniffed. “Right.”   
  
“But, look,” Fukou said, blustering, “that doesn’t mean I don’t think about the guy. We were close, you know?”  
  
He only made me twice, Hisoka remembered his partner’s shame-filled voice, I was fine with it the rest of the time... “Yes,” Hisoka said. “I know about that.” And Fukou’s face would feel so good against his fist, he thought. Even just for a moment.  
  
“You do, huh?” Fukou said. He refilled Hisoka’s cup and pushed it to him, a challenge. Waited until Hisoka was mid-swig, and then said, “Jealous?”  
  
“Jealous?” Hisoka spat, and the sake burned going down. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I’m going to kill you.”   
  
Fukou chuckled. “Oh, come on, ‘Souka, it was back in your grandfather’s time. You’ve got him now, don’t you? Let it go.”   
  
“Let it _go_?” Hisoka growled. He grabbed Fukou by the lapels of his stupid yukata, and something in the back of his head said that this was a very bad idea, and he didn’t care. “You _raped_ him, you son of a bitch!”  
  
Fukou’s emotions danced with the challenge, but aloud he just sighed, bored. “Okay, maybe you haven’t got him now.” His voice took on a lecturing tone. “Souka-chan, dear, sometimes grown-ups like to go to bed together. Would you like me to tell you about it? Maybe draw you a picture?”  
  
“Fuck you,” Hisoka spat. “I don’t care about that. But you forced him. Twice. He said.”   
  
Fukou frowned, and Hisoka’s grip slackened marginally at the genuine hurt he felt from the other man. “No, I didn’t.”  
  
“He remembers it,” Hisoka said. “Clearly.”   
  
Fukou’s lip curled. “You read his mind, huh? You’re a real piece of work, ‘Souka.”   
  
“Shut up.” Hisoka snarled. “You hurt him. He still remembers it. I’m not going to forgive you for that.”  
  
“This is bullshit,” Fukou said. He knocked Hisoka’s hands from his lapels with a quick, sharp gesture. “He never had any problem with me. He never said a damn thing about me doing nothing to him. We were friends.” Honest puzzlement, Hisoka felt, and hints of dismay on the edges of it, ready to crumble into anger. “He looked just as glad to see me as I was to see him, the other day. He didn’t look mad to me.”  
  
“Of course he didn’t,” Hisoka snapped. “He never looks the way he’s feeling, not until it’s so bad he can’t help it. Just because he’s smiling, that doesn’t mean he’s okay.”   
  
Fukou poured sake, trying for nonchalance. “That’s a real twisted way of looking at him, ‘Souka. That boy doesn’t have a lying bone in his body. He’s a good guy.”   
  
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. It’s... that’s part of it...” Hisoka trailed off, not sure how to explain, not liking the feeling of talking behind Tsuzuki’s back. Or, at least, of being the one to doubt Tsuzuki, the one who was criticizing him. Everyone always criticized him. Hisoka liked to think that it was different when he did it, but... “He doesn’t want other people to feel bad about him.”   
  
Fukou shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Good attitude. Very upstanding and all.” He swigged quickly, wanting the drink to ease the worry he was starting to feel. “Look, you don’t know what you’re talking about. We were friends. I loved him like a brother. I would have known if he was mad at me that whole time. I mean, hell, we were gonna transfer together-- why would he have wanted to do that if he didn’t want me around?”  
  
Hisoka steadied his ringing head. “You were going to transfer together?”  
  
“Yeah,” Fukou said. “It was his idea. I thought he’d just had enough of being a shinigami-- people do. And I figured, what the hell, something else could be fun for a while. So we wrote up for a transfer out of there. That’s when I left.”  
  
Ah. “His didn’t go through,” Hisoka said. “Enma wouldn’t let him go.”  
  
“I guess,” Fukou said.  
  
Hisoka glared. “And you didn’t stick around, did you? He found out he was stuck in this job he hated, and you just disappeared?”  
  
“Hey, hey,” Fukou barked, “don’t try to make it my fault. How was I supposed to know he wouldn’t get it? And besides...” He sighed. “Look, sometimes you just need a break from people, you know? Sometimes it just gets... a little too intense. You know?”  
  
“Intense?” Hisoka said. “Yeah. He’s in so much pain it killed him-- I suppose that could be kind of ‘intense.’” He shoved his cup toward the bottle. “And you left.”  
  
Fukou crossed his arms. “This is bullshit,” he said. “Look, I never did nothing to him. I don’t know where you’re getting this. I never raped him. I never raped anyone in my life.” Quick flash of memory, Fukou realizing that wasn’t quite true, but it flicked away again. “He could of told me off, if I’d have done something like that. Hell, he could of fought me or something, he’s strong enough. I couldn’t of done nothing if he hadn’t let me.”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said, “so he let you.” It felt very true to him. It felt like the answer to a lot of Tsuzuki, a lot of what Hisoka had wondered. “He always lets people do that to him.”   
  
“That’s not true,” Fukou said. “Why would anyone let people walk over him?”  
  
The bar was blurry in front of him. “Because he thinks he deserves it,” Hisoka said. He didn’t know why he was saying this much-- it wasn’t the place, it wasn’t his place. It must be the alcohol. “He thinks he’s being punished. He thinks he should be.” He blinked hard. “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt him. You should have seen that. You shouldn’t have made him do what you wanted, just because you wanted him to. He can’t stand up for himself-- he doesn’t know how. You should have respected his decision.”   
  
Fukou was frowning. “What decision?” he asked. “You’re talking stupid, kid. You really don’t have a head for this stuff, do you?”   
  
Hisoka shook his head, wincing as the walls spun around him. “No. I really don’t.”   
  
“I figured,” Fukou said. He was uncomfortable, his taste for a fight soured. “Look, you’re nuts. I been around a long time-- I would of known if there was something going on like that. You’ve got some real twisted ideas about Asato-kun. I’m sorry he got stuck with you for a partner. You don’t know a damn thing about him.” He stood up, settling his hat crookedly on his head. “Been a real pleasure, ‘Souka. Let’s not ever do this again.” He turned and hurried from the bar.  
  
Hisoka stared at his hands on the wet wooden surface in front of him. I’m drunk, he thought, in the middle of the workday. Damn. It was the easiest thing he could think of to think, just now.  
  
The hostess approached him timidly. “Um,” she said, “is he gone?”   
  
Hisoka nodded.  
  
She looked down at the jumble of bottles in front of him. “So,” she said, “are you going to pay for all this?”   
  
Hisoka stared at the overturned porcelain. What a mess, he thought. What a stupid mess we are. “I think,” he said, “I’d better.”   
  
Coffee, Hisoka found, did not make him less drunk. It made him an alert drunk, a drunk with jittery edges to his murky thoughts. He signed himself back in, then crept off to the library with a pad of legal paper, burying himself behind stacks. Muraki, actually, he thought, and there was enough drunkenness left that he almost laughed. Maybe I should think about Muraki.   
  
Maybe I shouldn’t.   
  
His head hit his folded arms with a heavy thump, and the world slipped mercifully away.  
  
“Hisoka-san?”   
  
Hisoka looked up into the worried face of a hovering librarian. “Guoshoshin?”   
  
The little god backed off. “You fell asleep?” he asked.  
  
Hisoka put a hand to his head. “Yes,” he muttered. Apparently, one could get a hangover even without a full night’s sleep. It was a piece of information he could have happily gone without. “What time is it?”  
  
“It’s after five,” the Guoshoushin said. “Everyone is going home.” He cocked his head. “You really ought to sleep at night, you know...”  
  
“I know,” Hisoka grumbled, wishing he would speak more softly. “I will.” He stood up carefully, trying to keep his pounding head balanced on his shoulders.  
  
The Guoshoushin watched him. “Hisoka-san?”  
  
Turning his head took so much work. “Yes?”  
  
The Guoshoushin hesitated, then just said, “Sleep well.”  
  
“Thanks,” Hisoka said, and headed out.  
  
The building was quiet just now, the employees all gone home. Hisoka’s footsteps echoed in the corridor. For the moment, all he could think about was the pounding of his head, and he was glad of it. Thinking hurt. Feeling hurt. You shouldn’t have made him do what you wanted, just because you wanted him to, he thought. Not when it was the first time he felt right about something in... such a long time. You should have known he couldn’t stand against you.  
  
It was perfectly true. It didn’t do a thing about the fact that he couldn’t let Tsuzuki go off to fight Muraki and be damned for it. Because staying behind, living without him-- he couldn’t picture it. All he could see were cold winds settling in, freezing him deep and empty and broken as fallen ice. No.  
  
He supposed there was only one thing to do, then.


	11. Chapter Ten

The aspirin helped, as did a few hours of going through files, but Hisoka’s fist still sounded jarringly loud against Tsuzuki’s door. Especially when his first soft knock got no answer and he had to try again, harder. “Tsuzuki?”  
  
Long, measuring pause from inside. The smile was more-or-less in place by the time Tsuzuki got the door open. “Hey, Hisoka. You--” Tsuzuki cut himself off. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said, and realized how heavily he was leaning against the door frame. He straightened. “Tsuzuki...” He met Tsuzuki’s eyes, wanting to communicate some of the morass in his mind, but it didn’t work. Tsuzuki wasn’t there. He was half-smiling, eyes bright and blank and elsewhere. Hisoka couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t cut him again.   
  
He held up the folder in his hand. “I found some more information,” he said. “If we’re going to go attack Muraki, we’d better make a plan, don’t you think?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Hisoka sighed. “Come on,” he said. “You don’t think I’m going to send you out there by yourself, do you?” He couldn’t quite roll his eyes-- he would have had to glance away, and that was well beyond his abilities, just now. “Did you forget that I’m the one he killed? You think I’d let you be the only one to get him now?”  
  
Tsuzuki stared at him. “You said I couldn’t go.”   
  
“I...” Hisoka said, some voice in the back of his mind saying look, it’s fine, leave it, he’ll stay if you just leave it alone... “I was wrong.”   
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “Hisoka, you don’t have to--” Hisoka swayed on his feet, and Tsuzuki put out a hand to catch him. “Hisoka!”  
  
“It’s fine, I’m--” His voice was too loud-- Hisoka put a hand to his head. “Can I sit down?”  
  
Tsuzuki leaned forward, putting an arm around him. “Yeah,” he said. “Come on in.” Worry flared. “What _happened_? Are you--” He caught a whiff of Hisoka’s breath and stopped, startled.  
  
“Fine,” Hisoka said, trying to think about something other than how good it felt to be held up, protected, worried over. “I’ll be fine. As soon as... ah... my system clears out the...”   
  
“Sake?” Tsuzuki asked, almost bemused, then worried again. “ _You’ve_ been drinking? About this? Hisoka!”   
  
Hisoka winced. “Could you keep your voice down?”   
  
Tsuzuki eased him onto the couch, and spoke more softly, though no less urgently. “You didn’t have to-- Hisoka, I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry about it. We’ll drop this.”   
  
“No--” Hisoka started, cut it off with a moan when shaking his head proved a very bad idea. “We’re not gonna drop it. It’s Muraki, it’s...” It was hard to think, hard to force thoughts through the jagged edges of his brain. It didn’t help that Tsuzuki’s emotions were such a jumble he couldn’t get at them-- they kept shifting. The grief was unsettling. “What?”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed, sitting down heavily next to him. “Hisoka,” he said, “you don’t want to go to Hell.”  
  
Hisoka looked down. “No,” he said, “That’s not the point...”   
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “There’s no reason for you to suffer,” he said. “You were right, before-- there would be another angel to do his job. Even if we did manage. And I’m not sure we could.” He put a gentle hand to Hisoka’s head. “So there’s no reason for you to go to that trouble.”  
  
Hisoka glared at him. “And what would you do?” Tsuzuki started to answer, a reassuring smile firmly in place. Hisoka cut him off. “You said you couldn’t stand being a shinigami any more. You said it was killing you.”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “So I exaggerate,” he said. He met Hisoka’s eyes, serious. “I can stand a lot, Hisoka. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“You’ll hate yourself,” Hisoka said and wondered, am I trying to talk him _into_ it? What’s wrong with me? But his mouth kept going. “I hate you hating yourself. It stings. I’m sick of it.”   
  
Tsuzuki looked down. “You get used to it.”   
  
No, Hisoka thought, I don’t. Because every time I think I have, you say something like that, and feel something like _that_ , and I’m surprised all over again. “Tsuzuki...” he said. “You’re right. I don’t want to be condemned. I don’t want you to be condemned, either. But...” He put his hand to his forehead. “I see you after assignments. I feel you. That last one, with the old woman who was staying alive to take care of her cats? When she tried to fight us off...” Tsuzuki’s grief echoed, resonated. “Sometimes I think you already are in Hell.”  
  
Tsuzuki crossed his arms over his chest, looking away. _You weren’t supposed to know that,_ Hisoka caught. “Well,” Tsuzuki said, “I guess it’s justice, then.”  
  
“So what?” Hisoka said. “What kind of idiotic justice is that? You’re a good person.” He felt the denial rising and rode over it ruthlessly. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known. You don’t deserve to be tortured like this.”   
  
Tsuzuki blinked, a hint of amusement flickering. “So you think we should go kill Muraki, and go to Hell... because you think I don’t deserve to be tortured?”  
  
Hisoka snarled. “We can’t just do _nothing_.” His own voice hurt his head.   
  
_Yes, we can,_ Hisoka caught. _It’s easy._ Tsuzuki smiled. “Look,” he said, “It’s simple. You don’t want me to leave you, right? So either we kill Muraki and go to Hell together, or we stay here. Hell’s got razors and flaming cages and ravens pecking out your eyes. Here has Cinnabons.” He shrugged. “What’s to choose?”   
  
That’s not what you were saying this afternoon, Hisoka thought. But now you’re not thinking about getting away from here-- you’re thinking about me in Hell. You’re thinking that if I were there, you’d spend the next two thousand years feeling guilty. You’re thinking that... that you couldn’t escape how I make you feel, even there.   
  
Damn it.   
  
“Hisoka?” Tsuzuki’s voice was dismayed, and Hisoka realized that his own face had twisted into a grimace, trying not to cry, that his shoulders were shaking. “It’s okay. Honestly...”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. He hunched in on himself, arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, not reaching for Tsuzuki. Not reaching. _I can’t,_ he sent, loud enough for Tsuzuki-- and probably half the neighbors-- to hear. _I’m sorry. I’m just like Lord Enma. I can’t let you go. I’m sorry, Tsuzuki, but I can’t. I’m too weak. And I thought-- I thought you wanted me, too. I thought you..._  
  
“I do!” Tsuzuki insisted, falling over himself to reassure him. “I love you, I want to stay with you. I just said that, right? I’ll stay here. It was a stupid idea, anyway. I don’t want you hurt. I don’t ever want to hurt you. I was just being selfish-- it’s a character flaw, everyone knows that. I’m sorry.”   
  
And the thing that Hisoka hated about himself was how reassured he felt by that. How much some simple, stupid part of him was thinking, oh, good-- you’ll stay with me. How much that part of him didn’t give a damn how Tsuzuki felt, as long as he was there. Hisoka sat still, not looking up.  
  
“So don’t worry about it,” Tsuzuki said. “Look, I don’t really want to leave. Besides you-- who would Watari test out his potions on, if we left? And Tatsumi would have to hire new people and totally redo the budget, and he hates that. And the Guoshoushin would miss you-- I don’t think anyone else goes to the library just to read. We’ll be fine.”  
  
Hisoka reached out blindly, clutching Tsuzuki’s hand in his own. He sat for a long moment, just feeling Tsuzuki’s touch, feeling him solid and strong in his grasp. Then he said, “And the baby?”  
  
There was a long pause.  
  
Hisoka drew in a long breath, his hand tight around Tsuzuki’s. “That,” he said, “that’s what you were thinking about before I got here. Wasn’t it?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsuzuki said.  
  
Hisoka wished that were true. “It doesn’t?”  
  
It did. Tsuzuki said nothing for a long moment, fighting with himself over whether or not to speak. He rested his forehead on his fist. “There’s no choice,” he said. “I said I wouldn’t leave you, Hisoka. But I can’t drag you into Hell. That’s not what I want for you.” His voice was ragged. “But how can I leave him? How can I just abandon him to be tortured? What kind of person would do that?”  
  
“Not you,” Hisoka said. “You can’t do that.”  
  
“But then I’ll hurt _you_ ,” Tsuzuki said. “No matter what I do. I thought about just going, you know? Just going off and rescuing him on my own, just not telling you where I’d gone--” Hisoka gasped, sick shock at the thought. Tsuzuki put his other hand over Hisoka’s, holding him tight with both hands. “That would be worse.”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Hisoka said, voice shaking. “It would.”  
  
“But it can’t be worse than Hell,” Tsuzuki said. “That’s what Hell is. The whole point of Hell is to be worse.”  
  
“It couldn’t be,” Hisoka said. “It couldn’t be worse than losing you.”  
  
Tsuzuki brought Hisoka’s hand up to kiss his knuckles. “You’d survive that, though.”  
  
“I wouldn’t want to.”  
  
“I know,” Tsuzuki said. “But you would.”  
  
Hisoka glared. “You want me to feel the way you do?”  
  
“No!” Tsuzuki winced. “No. I don’t.” His fingers clenched around Hisoka’s, white-knuckled. “But I’ve read about Hell, Hisoka. They have a yearly report on what they do, I looked through it,” _in detail,_ Hisoka caught, _one miserable night when the only relief he could find was in imagining just what should be done to him, every cut, every burn, every scream_... it took Hisoka a moment to find his way back from the memory to the conversation. “I can’t stand the thought of someone doing that to you.”  
  
Well, Hisoka thought, shaken, neither can I. Oh, gods... Not that they would be any help. “But,” he said, “isn’t that what Muraki’s doing to the baby?”   
  
Tsuzuki shut his eyes. “Yes.” He went on, choking out the words. “And he’s so _little_ , Hisoka. He can’t understand, he can’t possibly know what’s going on. He must just be hurting. He... he screamed when I touched him.” That touch had stayed, Hisoka felt, Tsuzuki had felt it on his hand for hours afterwards-- the impossibly soft skin, the shriek that came with it. “Just from being touched. He must not know anything else. So he can’t escape, even into his mind, he’s just hurt and hurt and hurt...”   
  
Hisoka nodded. That had been just what it felt like. “And,” he said. “The baby never chose that. He can’t.” He took a deep breath. “I can.”   
  
Tsuzuki opened his eyes. “You shouldn’t,” he said. “Hisoka, I’m... not a sane thing to choose.”   
  
“Shut up,” Hisoka said. “You’re the only thing to choose, for me. Don’t you know that?” That wasn’t the point. “I don’t want to stay here and watch you think about him hurting, Tsuzuki. I don’t want to listen to you feel guilty about that. I want to go save him. With you. Please?”   
  
Hisoka leaned against Tsuzuki, not meeting his eyes, but wanting the closeness. Tsuzuki put his arms around him, holding him tightly, saying nothing. “And besides,” Hisoka went on, “it’s what I want. To kill Muraki. To keep him from hurting someone else the way he hurt me. You see?”  
  
“Yes,” Tsuzuki said, slowly. “All right. Yes.”   
  
All right, Hisoka thought. Then. It’s not good, it’s not the right choice, it’s not going to make us happy. But there was a moment back there, when you first wanted to rescue the baby, when you didn’t hate yourself at all. Maybe that’s the best we can do.   
  
They sat together, emotions whirling, settling, coming to a resolution. “I’m not sure how much the baby deserves it,” Hisoka said. “I found out more about it. He was Muraki’s brother. He used to--” He paused, not having thought about it this way. “I think he used to do everything to Muraki that Muraki does to other people now. He killed his parents. Muraki wanted revenge.”   
  
Tsuzuki’s hands tightened on Hisoka’s shoulders. “That was Muraki’s brother,” he said. “He’s dead.”   
  
Hisoka nestled his face against Tsuzuki’s sleeve, the cloth familiar and soft against his cheek. “It’s the same soul.”  
  
“But not the same person,” Tsuzuki said. “He’s living a new life now. He’s a different person.” _He’s me._  
  
Hisoka blinked. “You?” he asked. “How...?”  
  
Tsuzuki paused, then went on without comment on Hisoka’s answering his thought. “He’s a clone,” Tsuzuki said. “Watari showed me the notes he stole. That baby-- he’s exactly like me. Every single cell.” He tilted his head. “Of course, that means he’ll be terribly handsome, when he grows up...”  
  
Hisoka sighed. “Maybe. If he has the sense to get a decent haircut and buy more than one suit.”   
  
“So mean,” Tsuzuki complained, ruffling Hisoka’s hair. Hisoka sighed and moved closer to him. They held it for a breath, and then Tsuzuki went on. “It’s just... I know I didn’t turn out the way anyone would have wanted me to. But maybe he has a chance to do better.” He spoke hesitantly, as if this were too important to risk being mocked, but too important to not say. “And I’d be happy, then. If he could live a good life. If he could not make my mistakes. But how can he do that if Muraki has him like that?” His tone firmed. “I won’t let that happen.”   
  
There it is again, Hisoka thought. The certainty. The conviction. That’s the person you want to be talking. I can hear that. And... and I don’t understand him, not really, that person. He doesn’t make sense to me. He’s so much more than I ever imagined.   
  
And he’s you. And you love me.  
  
It was very odd.  
  
“Good,” Hisoka said. He sat up inside the circle of Tsuzuki’s arms. “So then we’d better come up with a plan for how to rescue him, right?” He gestured to the table. “I brought files.”   
  
Tsuzuki almost laughed. “You’re so organized,” he said.  
  
“In comparison to you, sure.”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “I love you,” he said. “I do.”  
  
Hisoka met his eyes. Tsuzuki was... Tsuzuki. Beautiful, and kind, and hurt, and foolish, and strong, and more than Hisoka could ever really understand. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Me too.” There was so much to say. “He is an angel,” Hisoka said. “They’re hard to kill. You have to find what makes them beyond-human and do something about it. I found a few cases where people have fought them...”  
  
Tsuzuki kissed him. “Yeah?” he said, taking the file Hisoka held. “Let me see that.”   
  
It took until about midnight to hammer out the details of the plan. Hisoka took detailed notes, which Tsuzuki laughed at him about, but didn’t object to. He glanced over them, at the end. “Right,” Hisoka said. “So we leave the baby with the Sisters of Mercy-- they were good to Kazusa.” He shuffled through files, copying down the address to his own notes.   
  
“Sounds good,” Tsuzuki said. He perked up. “Oh-- I can leave him my bank account. That should help.”  
  
Hisoka glanced up quizzically. “Is there anything _in_ your bank account?”   
  
Tsuzuki whined. “Of course there is! I think.” He shrugged. “Maybe not.”  
  
Hisoka sighed. “We’ll check,” he said, making a note to clean out Tsuzuki’s account. And his own. He flipped through the notes. “That looks like it.”   
  
Tsuzuki looked over the plan. “Right,” he said, adding details here and there. “Guess there’s nothing to do now but go to bed.” He didn’t move, though. “It’s weird to think about, you know? Actually doing something.”  
  
Hisoka shrugged. “We do things all the time,” he said, thinking, it’s just that we don’t do things just because you want to.   
  
“I guess,” Tsuzuki said. He smiled. “I am glad you’re with me, Hisoka. After all.” He stood up. “Come on.”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said. He followed, half-wandering Tsuzuki’s emotions. There was still the resolution, the belief in what they were doing. It was still good to feel. But what it was masking, along with the whole mess of Tsuzuki’s usual pain, was simple fear-- _if we do this, we’re going to get hurt. Badly hurt._ And Tsuzuki had been hurt enough to know what that felt like.   
  
Odd, Hisoka thought, slipping into bed and holding his partner tight. Because Tsuzuki was thinking, on a level below thought, that pain wouldn’t be so bad, if he knew the reason for it. That if he could think about the baby-- his other self-- living a good life, happy and unhurt, that he could stand Hell. It would be worthwhile. He just... wasn’t looking forward to it.   
  
It’s not fair, Hisoka thought, feeling Tsuzuki slip into sleep. It’s like he finally figured himself out-- and how long does he get to be that person? A day? A day and a half? And then he gets hurt for it. I’m so sick of him getting hurt. It’s not fair. And no-one seems to care, as long as he does his job. We do, the shinigami care, but the gods, the Ministries... they’re perfectly happy for him to tear himself to pieces. Or to tear him to pieces themselves, if he’s not doing it quickly enough.   
  
He could feel himself tensing. How dare they, Hisoka thought. How dare they loose Muraki on us, force Tsuzuki to kill for them, and then, when we want to do something about it, _we’ll_ be the ones punished for it? Like we’re just pieces in their machines, and they can just replace us if we break. If it’s like that, why give us souls at all? What’s the point in having a mind or a will if you’ll just get destroyed for using them? Why give us emotions in the first place if they’re only going to get in their way? It’s not like any of _them_ care about what we feel. When has anyone there ever shown the slightest sign of giving a damn about anything except whether we’re getting in their way?  
  
The answer to that question drifted suddenly into Hisoka’s mind, like a poem blown in through a window.   
  
Oh, he thought. Maybe. I don’t have any proof, but... maybe. Possibly. Worth a shot. I’ll feel like a real idiot if I’m wrong, but... otherwise, they’re going to keep hurting him.  
  
The hell they are.  
  
He slipped out of bed quietly, leaving Tsuzuki asleep behind him. Dressing in the dark was a challenge, but he managed it. He glanced at Tsuzuki in the bed and disappeared.  
  
The JuOhCho building was almost silent at night, and there was something creepy about the way the halls echoed with his footsteps. It felt like what it was-- haunted. The fact that he was one of the haunters didn’t make Hisoka feel any better. I don’t feel anyone, he thought, but there was a distant humming sound from above him. He followed it up the stairs, trying to keep his footsteps steady. There wasn’t any rational reason to be nervous.  
  
Well, except that there was.  
  
The light came gradually ahead of him-- at first just a dimness, then a glow, then clear lines of light spilling out from the edges of a closed doorway. Hisoka hesitated, then pulled open the door.  
  
The roar inside was deafening, Hisoka thought, wincing at the brightness. Still, he could vaguely hear singing over it-- something that could have been pop, could have been a chant. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the stocky shape in front of him, headphones over her kerchief as she moved the vacuum cleaner in front of her. Hisoka cleared his throat. “Yin... san?” No answer, his voice lost in the roar. “ _Yin-san_!”   
  
The vacuum’s roar died down. The cleaning-lady turned, taking off the headphones, her expression foolishly puzzled. “Hey, there, boy,” she said, tone confused but cheerful. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”  
  
Hisoka stepped forward. “I could ask you the same question.”  
  
“Me?” She gestured with the hose. “Overtime. One of the girls moved on, and they wanted me to fill in until they can find a replacement.” She sighed. “It’s a long night, I guess, and nobody worries about how my knees feel, but hey, the pay’s good...”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “Stop,” he said. “I know you’re not a cleaning-lady.”   
  
“You do?” She held the confused expression, more amused by the moment-- though he didn’t know how he knew that, he still couldn’t feel her. Maybe it was something in her eyes. “But I have the uniform and everything.”  
  
Hisoka frowned. “Please,” he said. “There isn’t time for this.” She looked so normal, he thought. She looked perfectly what she claimed to be. But. “It’s...” he started. “Tsuzuki. You care about him, don’t you? You keep being there for him.”  
  
She smiled. “You could say that,” she said. “He’s kind. Even to a little old condemned soul behind a mop. I like that, in a person.”   
  
Hisoka took a deep breath. “He needs help,” he said. “He’s going to...” He wished he knew more. He wished he had anything to go on besides a hunch right now. “You’ve known him for a while.” She nodded. “He... he’s been so stepped-on. He’s let himself be. He thinks he deserves it.” He met her eyes, grabbing at anger to hold him up. “He doesn’t.”  
  
She shrugged. “I don’t know much about what anyone deserves,” she said.   
  
“It’s too much,” Hisoka said, insistent, worried-- this had to work. “And now he’s going to go do something about it, and he doesn’t deserve to be punished for that. He’s been punished enough. Don’t you see that?”  
  
She scratched her head. “With the way you’re talking, boy, it’s hard to see anything clearly. You want to be a little more specific?” Hisoka hesitated. She sighed. “All right, I’ll start you off. This is about that Muraki, right?”  
  
Hisoka nodded. “Yes.” She raised her eyebrows in a ‘go on’ gesture. “He’s torturing a baby-- a clone he made of Tsuzuki.” That was still such an infuriatingly obscene concept. “We’re going to go rescue it. And I think we’ll have to kill Muraki to do that.”  
  
“You don’t just _think_ you will, boy,” she said. “Not much point in lying to me. You’ve been wanting to kill that man for three years now. You’ve been thinking of nothing else.” Hisoka stepped back, heart racing. “You finally getting your wish, now?”  
  
Hisoka stammered. “I...” He took a deep breath. “That’s not really the point.”  
  
“It’s not?” she asked, and the air in the room seemed to have stopped moving, like the sky before a storm. “It’s your vengeance, isn’t it?”  
  
“But it’s not Tsuzuki’s,” Hisoka said. “He deserves vengeance-- Muraki hurt him worse than he hurt me. But... but that’s not what he’s thinking about. Not really. He’s thinking about the baby.” And about getting himself punished, but that’s not what he admits he’s thinking. So.   
  
Her eyes were half-open now, and Hisoka felt pinned by them. “He wants to give his life for that child?”  
  
Well, Hisoka thought, he wants to give his life. “He thinks it’s worth it,” he said. “And so do I.”  
  
She was frowning. “Do you?”  
  
Don’t lie, Hisoka thought. He didn’t know where the thought came from, but it seemed very, very important just now. “I don’t know,” he said. “If we rescue this child, there will still be thousands of others in just as bad a situation. Maybe there’s not much point.”   
  
There was a slight frown on her heavy features. “Then what are you doing it for?”  
  
“Tsuzuki,” he said. “He needs this. He needs to help someone, save someone. He needs to stop taking lives. And... and I don’t want to watch him hurt like this.”  
  
She settled back, her hand on the vacuum cleaner like she was holding a sword. “So you’d commit a crime that would get you condemned to thousands of years of torture-- for him?”  
  
That missed the point. “But he shouldn’t be condemned,” he said. “It’s not-- I know it’s a crime, but why can’t he get a break? His whole life, he’s tried to help people, to do good-- and his whole life, people have hated him for it. Why can’t he be free of that?” He stepped forward. “You know him-- can’t you help him? Can’t you do something?”  
  
“Of course I can,” she said. “You aren’t answering my question, though.”  
  
Hisoka ground his teeth. “Yes, I’d do that for him.”   
  
“Hmm,” she said. “Just for him? What if you had to choose between helping him and your vengeance? Hm?”   
  
Hisoka frowned. “How?”  
  
“Never mind how,” she said. “What if you couldn’t kill Muraki to get revenge for what he did to you? What if you had to take what he did-- violating you, cutting you to pieces, taking your life, almost taking the man you love-- and let it all go? If that’s what you had to do, to help Tsuzuki-- could you?”  
  
Hisoka hesitated. “I...” he said. “Why would I have to do that? That doesn’t make sense. How would that help?”  
  
Her frown deepened. “That’s the wrong question,” she said. “Hatred is a trap, you know. It keeps someone from moving through the cycle. It’s dangerous. And you have so much of it, I’m not sure how you can have this conversation with me.”   
  
Hisoka shook his head. “Tsuzuki,” he said.  
  
Her expression softened a little. “Tsuzuki,” she sighed. She met his eyes and Hisoka shivered, trying hard to stay upright. “What if you had to give him up to help him?”  
  
No, Hisoka thought. “That doesn’t make sense, either.”  
  
“No?” she said. “Well, sense is overrated, Kurosaki Hisoka. You need to learn that.” She stood very erect, her lips curved very subtly upwards. “No, Tsuzuki doesn’t have to be hurt any more. But I don’t know whether you can free him and keep him at the same time. You might have to choose one or the other.” She sighed. “And I would surely hate to see him held back because you can’t stand to let loose that attachment.”   
  
“Of course I won’t get him hurt,” Hisoka said. “Not if I can help it. But... but I don’t know what to do.” She watched him silently. “Please. You can help him-- you can at least tell me what to do. How do I keep him out of Hell? How do I get him free of this? You aren’t telling me anything I can use.” She shrugged and turned back to the vacuum cleaner. “You have to help him. He can’t keep going like this. He shouldn’t have it worse. You have to tell me what to do.”  
  
“You aren’t listening,” she said.   
  
“I am listening!” Hisoka snapped. “You’re not making any sense!”  
  
“None?” she said. “That’s a shame. Then I’ll tell you plainly: you’re thinking too much about yourself to get my help. You’re too caught up in your desires to free anyone-- Tsuzuki or Muraki.” Her gaze was measuring, even. “You might have a shot at it, if you let go a little. Better get started on that quickly, though-- you don’t have much time.” She turned away. “Good luck,” she said, and started to vacuum again.  
  
“Wait,” Hisoka said. He couldn’t hear his voice over the roaring. “Wait! Yin-san!” She adjusted the headphones over her ears, turning away. He started hearing the hum again. No, Hisoka thought. I haven’t come this far to get brushed off now. No. “ _Yin-san_!” he shouted. “ _Yin-sama_!” He stepped forward, putting his hand to her shoulder to drag her attention back. “ _Yin-sa-_ -”  
  
And then he touched her. And then he stopped being able to think. I hadn’t felt her, he thought, I couldn’t feel her-- there’s too much of her to feel. And it’s all so... he was falling through the world, and there were a million voices, more, and he could hear all of them. Every voice in the world and out of it, every cry, every plea, every pained silence, they were all echoing in his ears, and he should not have stood it, but there was so much light inside him. He was brighter than suns, brighter than galaxies, and he could hear everything, feel everything, and it wasn’t chaos, it was a pattern, and he couldn’t breathe. His name got lost, his hands were gone, and he was falling, and he was falling...  
  
And he was lying on the floor of Tsuzuki’s bedroom, his face buried in his hands. I don’t understand, he thought. I can’t. I...  
  
And the next thing he knew it was morning, on his last day in Meifu.


	12. Chapter Eleven

  
Hisoka woke because Tsuzuki tripped over him. Ow, Hisoka thought, and, that’s not a good way to start. “Watch it!”  
  
Tsuzuki blinked. “Hisoka?” he asked, kneeling. “What are you doing on the floor?”  
  
Hisoka was wondering that himself. It took a blurred moment before he remembered the night before. She didn’t say she’d help, he thought. She didn’t say she wouldn’t, but... I can’t rely on her. “Mm,” he said. “You’re up already.”  
  
“Yeah,” Tsuzuki said, subtly checking Hisoka for injuries or distress. “I... um. I should call my shikigami.”   
  
“The shikigami?”  
  
Finding nothing wrong, Tsuzuki offered Hisoka a hand up. “I thought... well, we shouldn’t drag them along with us, you know? I should really set them free before... well, before anything.”  
  
Hisoka went cold. “Tsuzuki, we need them!” And you know that, he thought. Having second thoughts? “How exactly will this work if they’re not with us?”  
  
Tsuzuki looked away. “Well...” he said, “It’d be awful if it didn’t work, and they got in trouble for it anyway...”   
  
Hisoka grabbed his arm. “It would be awful if they left,” he said, “and so it didn’t work.” He tried to make Tsuzuki meet his gaze. “We can do this,” he said. “We just have to try.”  
  
“But...” Tsuzuki tried.  
  
“Do you really think you could _keep_ Suzaku from helping you?” Hisoka demanded.   
  
Tsuzuki sighed. “I guess not.”   
  
“You can ask them,” Hisoka said, “But I’ll bet they’ll say no.”  
  
Tsuzuki nodded. “I’ll ask them later.”  
  
Hisoka nodded, still not liking the thought. “We can do this.”   
  
Tsuzuki smiled. “Okay, Hisoka.” He stretched. “Hey, can you make omuraisu? We’ve got time.”  
  
“Sure,” Hisoka said, because if his partner wasn’t listening, he wasn’t listening, and yelling never actually helped. She said I’m holding on to him, he thought, and that it wouldn’t work unless I stopped. It would be nice if she’d said how to stop, exactly.  
  
It doesn’t matter. I’ve never gotten help from anyone but him-- I don’t need it now. We’ll do this. He headed into the kitchen and started looking for eggs. “I can’t believe you can find anything in here.”  
  
“Well,” Tsuzuki said, “I’ve been meaning to clean it...” He trailed off, realizing, as Hisoka did, that he probably wouldn’t, now. He hesitated in the doorway. “Hisoka... are you sure about this?”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “If you can think of a better plan for rescuing that kid, I’ll be glad to do that instead.”  
  
Tsuzuki said nothing, and then said nothing again. “Can you make the omuraisu with demiglaze?”  
  
“Sure,” Hisoka said, and left it at that.   
  
Breakfast was slow, both of them too tense to eat much. Eventually, after Hisoka’s third poke at a piece of egg without eating it, Tsuzuki put down his chopsticks. “Let’s just go,” he said.   
  
Hisoka nodded, and they got themselves together and ready, wrapping up the last few details of the plan. Then they blinked out, leaving Meifu behind them.  
  
Seen with normal sight, Muraki’s rented house looked very much as it had two days ago. Looking closer, Hisoka could see three layers of interlocking shields, all of them strong enough to block a heavy-duty attack. Even if he hadn’t gotten Watari’s notes last night, he thought that he could have spotted the otherwise cheerful little house as Muraki’s. “Think he knows we’re here?” Hisoka murmured.  
  
Tsuzuki nodded. “Probably.” He looked up and down the block. “It looks like most people have gone to work or school,” he said, “but there are probably wives and young children still home.” He concentrated for a moment, spell-lines shifting around him. “There. They won’t know we’re here now-- but they’re not safe. We should be careful.”   
  
“We will be,” Hisoka said. He tried to sense. “I think they’re inside,” he said, “and I think the baby’s toward the back of the house.”   
  
“Good enough,” Tsuzuki said. He clasped Hisoka’s hand briefly. “Ready?”  
  
“Sure,” Hisoka said, and disappeared.  
  
Hisoka slipped through the neighbor’s yard, skirting the edges of the shield. We can do this, he thought. Well. We’ll do this whether we can or not. The thought didn’t slow his heartbeat or numb the shivering fear coiled in his gut. We have a plan this time, he thought. And if Tsuzuki really does use all his power, then Muraki doesn’t have a prayer. And Tsuzuki will use all his power. He has reason to. I hope... Hisoka cut off that line of thought there.  
  
He was in position now-- he could see the window of the nursery. The crib was there, and-- he gulped, darting backwards-- so was Muraki. The doctor was standing over the crib, his back to Hisoka. Hisoka could see the doctor’s hair shifting, maybe in the wind of spell-casting. It settled down just as the first explosion shook the front of the house.   
  
Muraki braced himself, and the first shield flickered, disappearing. Four more explosions shook the place in rapid succession. Down the block, a car alarm sounded, its screaming whine adding to the noise and the chaos. The second shield trembled. Muraki looked up, straight out the window at Hisoka, who tried not to flinch. I’m invisible, Hisoka reminded himself. Even to him. I think. Another explosion shook the trees around him, and Muraki turned away, leaving Hisoka’s line of vision. The door of the nursery closed behind him, and Hisoka saw the glow of a summons, the flames of Suzaku rising above the tiled roof. He wondered how far Tsuzuki’s spell went-- the immediate neighbors were covered, but it wouldn’t be long before someone called the fire-department about a flaming column rising in the quiet neighborhood. We don’t have much time, he thought.  
  
The third shield went down. Hisoka ran forward, building up speed, and leapt into the air. The nursery window was open to let in the summer breeze, and he cast one of Tsuzuki’s fuda to take out the smaller shield he saw over that window in particular. It bounced, but he could see the shield cracking, and another fuda made it shiver-- shake-- come apart as he vaulted through the window. Now, he thought, and was horribly surprised by the two feet of metal driven through his ribcage.  
  
Hisoka staggered, coughing blood. He looked up, his invisibility fading. “Mibu-san...”  
  
Oriya was having a bad week, Hisoka thought. The swordmaster’s face was set, steeling itself to an unwanted duty, trying to focus only on the fight. He could feel Hisoka shaking through his sword and didn’t like the feeling. “You shouldn’t have come, kid,” he said.  
  
Hisoka glared, bracing his hands against the metal. The katana felt obscenely wrong, even as his body tried to heal around it. He was losing too much blood, he’d lose more when Oriya pulled his blade free. “You said you didn’t know he was still alive,” he choked out.   
  
“I didn’t,” Oriya said. “You told me. After that, all I had to do was sit down on his parents’ grave and wait for a few months.”   
  
Hisoka gasped, vision swimming as he tried hard not to pass out. The baby _was_ in the crib next to him, and he almost wished it wasn’t, because he did not need to be feeling screaming, overwhelming terror as he tried to calmly consider the fact that he had a sword through his gut. It went all the way through, too, he could feel it coming out his back, and they had not planned for this. In the background, Hisoka could hear another explosion in front of the house, flames starting to roar, his partner’s voice shouting. “Get out of my way, Mibu-san.”  
  
He wasn’t expecting to feel fondness from the swordsman. “With or without the sword?”  
  
Hisoka threw his hands forward to the hilt of the blade and jerked backward, holding on tightly. His hands were slippery, but so were Oriya’s, and he moved fast enough-- he staggered backwards, breaking the sword out of Oriya’s grip. The sudden movement was almost enough to make him black out. The baby was screaming. Hisoka forced his eyes open, watching Oriya watch him. Damn you, he thought, you’re better than him-- why are you doing this?   
  
“Is it just for revenge?” Oriya asked. “It’s not worth it, then.”  
  
“No...” Hisoka panted, not having the energy for argument. The hilt was just within reach of his hands and he pulled-- then stopped, simply shocked at how much that _hurt._ He couldn’t remember hurting like this-- not the ripping horror of rape, not the day-to-day agony of dying, but this sudden, shocking reduction of everything in the universe to pain. And the sword hadn’t moved. He panted, his face wet-- tears or blood. I can’t stop here, he thought. We’re only on the first step. I can’t stop now.   
  
“Kid...” Oriya said.  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “ _No_!” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and threw himself at the solid wall behind him, pulling the sword with all his strength.  
  
He was lucky-- he hit solid metal, thick enough that the sword clanged against it, and he felt the reverberation through his entire body, but the damn thing moved. And once he got it started moving, it came more easily, came out. Hisoka fell to his knees, clutching the sword in his bloody hands, trying not to collapse completely. Shinigami, he thought. I’ll heal. I’ll heal. I’ll heal fast enough-- some instinct warned him to open his eyes in time to see Oriya’s approach, and Hisoka fell to the floor, clutching the sword underneath him. “No,” he panted. “No.”   
  
Oriya hesitated, not wanting to kick a fallen opponent in order to get his sword back. “It won’t help,” he said. “Even if you killed him for real, it wouldn’t bring you back to life.” His emotions felt very off-- his calm disturbed, shaken. He couldn’t quite manage his usual easy drawl, not with that sobbing urgency roiling underneath it. “How long are you going to keep doing this?”   
  
“It’s not--” Hisoka started, and then coughed too hard to get the words out. His mouth tasted nauseatingly of hot iron.   
  
“Didn’t you learn last time?” Oriya asked. “You can’t beat me if you’re only fighting out of anger, kid. It’s not enough.”  
  
Hisoka felt his organs shifting as his body tried to heal, and he fought hard not to whimper. It’s not hatred, he thought. Why do you people keep saying I’m acting out of hatred? It’s for Tsuzuki. Which she had said was also wrong, and it was too much to deal with right now. Surely he had enough to think about.  
  
“Go home,” Oriya said. “Leave him.”  
  
“It’s not hatred.” Hisoka managed to turn his head and squint upward, Oriya blurry above him. “We’re here for the baby.”  
  
Oriya’s eyes widened. “For Saki-chan?” he said, slowly. His face set, and he moved, fast, his foot throwing Hisoka over on his side. Hisoka yelped, trying to keep hold of the sword, and Oriya ripped it away, cutting deep slashes into his hands. “I don’t think so.”  
  
Hisoka gasped at the fresh pain, panting hard, pressing his palms against his thighs to stop the bleeding and trying to ignore the new hurt shooting up his arms. He glared, watching Oriya’s studied movements. He’s not playing this time, he thought. This isn’t a duel. He’ll kill me if I move. And he could kill me. And then the plan fails, and it’s all for nothing... “What do you care?” he snapped. “What’s Muraki’s brother to you?”  
  
“More than he is to you,” Oriya said. “What will change if you kill him?”  
  
Muraki? Hisoka thought. “Nothing,” he said. “Everything. At least Tsuzuki will be free.”  
  
Oriya set into a waiting stance, ready to attack. “You’ve got your priorities straight, huh?”  
  
“Yes,” Hisoka said, and wondered why Oriya was so easy to talk to with his blood on his blade. “It’s for Tsuzuki. As long as Tsuzuki can escape. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”  
  
Hisoka caught a flicker of incomprehension from Oriya, and the other man paused. “Especially not Muraki, hm?” he said. “Guess it’d be too much to ask you to think about his reasons.” Hisoka stared up at him, feeling his limbs turning to lead, heavy and immobile. “How will it help your friend if you kill Saki-chan?”  
  
Hisoka blinked, wishing his thoughts weren’t so sluggish. “We’re not here to kill the baby,” he said. “We’re here to rescue him.” He thought maybe he could stand up. Maybe. “He’s Tsuzuki’s copy-- we’re not going to let him be tortured.”   
  
Hope hurt, coming from Oriya. Especially when it sparked like this, and Hisoka tried to take advantage of it, fell to his knees as soon as he tried to rise. Damn. “You’re here to take him,” he said. “Not Muraki?”   
  
Lying would be the smartest thing to do, strategically. Hisoka didn’t want to lie to Oriya. He couldn’t think of anything convincing, anyway. “If he gets in our way,” he panted. Stupid, that was stupid, Oriya had the sword and he could barely move, but.   
  
“Ah,” Oriya said. He stood very still, barely panting, looking down at Hisoka. The baby wailed, scraping at Oriya’s resolve, and Hisoka wished he could stop shaking. Too much feeling in the room, he thought. Too hard to think. He needed to think. “How is that shinigami work?”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “It’s not,” he said, the walls spinning around him. “It’s for Tsuzuki.”  
  
Oriya glanced over at the wailing baby, his attention straining to stay on Hisoka. “He want to raise him himself or something?”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “He just doesn’t want him hurt.”   
  
“Hm.” Oriya considered a long moment, memories of the past few days flashing through his head, making him sick. “Even after what he’s done?” he asked, not quite believing himself. “Do you know what he did to Muraki, kid?” He frowned. “Do you care?” Hisoka panted, watching Oriya. Maybe that would stand in for the response he couldn’t think of. “Muraki used to have two eyes, you know.”  
  
That thing with his uncle’s eyeballs was a real piece of work, Hisoka remembered Fukou saying. He grimaced. “It’s not an excuse,” he panted.  
  
“No,” Oriya sighed. “Of course it isn’t. But he wasn’t like this, back then. He used to dream about healing people. He used to care.”  
  
Hisoka almost laughed. “Him? Care?”  
  
“You didn’t know him back then,” Oriya said, steel behind his tone. “He was cold, maybe, but he was sane.” A wisp of doubt, wondering how a person could change this much, wondering whether there had been something back then he just hadn’t noticed, even before... Oriya put the doubt aside. His voice was even, belying the words. “I can’t forgive Saki for killing my best friend.”   
  
Hisoka glared. “So you’re letting Muraki torture him now?” he asked. It did make sense to him, he had to admit. But on the other hand... “But he doesn’t remember it, does he?”  
  
Oriya winced. “Ah,” he said, “but he’s teaching him.” Hisoka got a flash of recent memory-- a murmured voice-- _do you remember this, Saki? Do you remember how you took the matches..._ and the sound of a lighted match sizzling out against flesh, heard from across the room, far enough not to see the baby’s face, close enough that he could stop Muraki if he tried... but he didn’t try. And the screams were so _loud_ in the closed space.   
  
“You hate this,” Hisoka said. “Mibu-san.” He thought he could feel his skin growing back over the wound in his gut. He thought maybe he could move. “You don’t want to watch him doing that.”  
  
“So?” Oriya said, and there was a world of resignation in the word.   
  
“So don’t,” Hisoka said. “Let us take him.” He could stand, now, he was pretty sure, but he wanted to wait for the right moment.   
  
“Muraki would die,” Oriya said. “Even if you don’t kill him. He needs this. He’s needed this ever since we were sixteen years old.”   
  
I don’t care, Hisoka thought. I don’t give a damn what he needs. But Oriya did, and Hisoka could feel that caring flowing through him, insidious as smoke-- grief, pity, the powerful, hopeless wish for things to be different. “But it’s not stopping,” Hisoka said, voicing the other man’s thought.  
  
Oriya shook his head. “No. He’s not.” His arms still held the sword out straight, could have held it all day, but Hisoka could feel his focus slipping. “He wanted to restore Saki so he could kill him,” he said. “He thought that would be enough. He was wrong. He’s killed him thirty times now. It doesn’t fix anything.” He sighed. “He wants to raise him to understand what he did-- but what if he does? It changes nothing.” His voice wasn’t quite shaking, but his eyes were clouded. “He just keeps coming back.”   
  
Hisoka watched the sword tremble. “We came to stop it,” he said. “Let us.”  
  
Oriya’s eyes met his, trapped, and terribly amused by it. “But my friend asked me to watch the baby,” he said.   
  
Hisoka glanced around the white room, spotless except for bloodstains. Most of them weren’t his. “Mibu-san,” he said, “is _this_ your place in the world?” He gestured to the whimpering shape in the crib. “Is this the place you fight for?” He frowned. “I don’t think it’s worth it.”   
  
Oriya followed his glance. “But it’s what I have,” he said. “You see? It’s not much of a place-- but what is there if I leave it?”  
  
I don’t know, Hisoka thought. But we’re about to find out. Tsuzuki and I. “He’s not worth it,” he said.  
  
Oriya shook his head. “You don’t understand.” _How it feels, when he’s all that makes you feel alive any more, when none of the misery or trouble is enough to outweigh the fact that he’s with you. Even if it’s only part of him, even if his attention is always elsewhere-- you need him in the world._   
  
“No,” Hisoka said. And he was healed enough now, and he could flick invisible and dart across the room. And he could make himself reach down and scoop up the baby, fast enough to keep himself from thinking. And then  
  
 _scared scared touch so pain FEAR warmth so pain FEAR lifted so going to fall so pain FEAR hear breath so pain FEAR feel heatbeat so pain FEAR everything is pain..._  
  
“ _No,_ ” Hisoka gasped, trying to find his way back to himself. He forced his eyes open, forced himself to focus on the baby in his arms, on Oriya charging him ( _FEAR sword so cut so pain FEAR_ ). He dodged, keeping the crib between the two of them. He opened his mouth to say something-- something reasoned, logical, a convincing argument. “ _Stop hurting me!_ ”   
  
Oriya actually hesitated. “Kid?”  
  
Hisoka was past embarrassment, past anything but fighting the flood of terror in his mind. I am Kurosaki Hisoka, he thought. I am a shinigami. I am not afraid. I am not helpless. I am going to win. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. “It’s not worth it,” he choked out. “Look at him, Mibu-san. All he knows is pain. No comfort. No hope. Just pain. Muraki did that to him.” He met Oriya’s eyes. “It’s not worth it.”   
  
The house shook. The baby in Hisoka’s arms smelled the smoke before he did, and screamed louder, remembering just what pain comes with fire. Oriya braced himself. “Outside, kid,” he said. “No point in arguing while the house falls down on us, huh?”  
  
Hisoka panted, trying to hold onto language. The baby, he thought. I have the baby. The plan. I’m supposed to... “Tsuzuki,” he gasped and darted back out the window. He could hear Oriya behind him, and that was bad, strategically, but it was hard enough ( _fast movement FEAR so a lot of pain maybe the most pain FEAR maybe rushing through the air smashing against the hard pain FEAR FEAR FEAR_ ) to stay upright and running without worrying about tactics. Tsuzuki, he thought. Find Tsuzuki. He’ll know what to do.   
  
He came around the side of the house and stopped short, just fast enough to keep from being bowled over by the backlash of a spell. There were shikigami there, two of them-- Suzaku in flight and Byakko springing onto something huge and scaly. Muraki had just summoned it, he stood in the middle of a casting circle, and Tsuzuki was facing him, his face lit by the glowing symbols of his spells. Wow, Hisoka thought, because Tsuzuki was awesome to see in a fight, and he could feel him-- focused, exhilarated, determined to make every second count, to make absolutely certain that Hisoka had time to get the baby, determined not to fail him. Beautiful, Hisoka thought, almost without noticing it. “ _Tsuzuki!_ ”   
  
Muraki glanced up. “Boy, you never have--” Then he saw the baby in Hisoka’s hands, and Hisoka had never seen that look on his face. Maybe he is an angel, he thought. I don’t think humans can burn like that. He had no time to move, just a moment’s panic and then Muraki was across the driveway, shoving Hisoka backwards. Hisoka ducked, turning away, shielding the baby with his arms, and Muraki was too furious to play, too furious to bother to grope him, focused on nothing but ripping the baby out of his arms. The baby screamed, Tsuzuki shouted, and Hisoka’s gut pulsed hot blood again, the healing incomplete. Muraki’s hand in his hair yanked his head back almost far enough to snap it, throwing him backwards. Hisoka clutched the wailing baby in his arms, Muraki’s fingers like claws on his hands, and it was too fast to think, too fast to do anything but hold on.  
  
“Hisoka!” The hands were ripped away from him and Hisoka hunched forward over the baby. Tsuzuki was standing over Muraki. His punch had knocked Muraki to the ground for a split second before he was up again, charging, and Hisoka had never seen him like this. Muraki always had that smoothness, that... Hisoka hated to say classiness, but he’d never seen him look caught off-guard, without the polish. This was not polished. This was an almost feral fury, and then he had no more time to make observations because Muraki had thrown him to the ground ( _underneath the tree, nothing like this had ever happened to him before and he could not help screaming..._ ) and his moment of distraction was almost enough to lose his grasp before Tsuzuki threw himself on Muraki and bore him bodily to the ground, just heavy enough to knock him over. “Stay off him,” Tsuzuki was growling, and his hand was on Muraki’s neck, and there was a fuda in it, “don’t touch him, Muraki.”   
  
The doctor hissed, twisting, and then the fuda rustled against his neck, and something changed. Something cut in, just in that moment, and the fury was gone back to its usual place, hidden somewhere in the darkness behind that calm, pale face. “Tsuzuki-san,” he said, his eyes glancing downwards to where Tsuzuki had him pinned, “this is a switch.” He smirked, and Hisoka could not believe how real the amusement felt-- emotions like a perfect painting on glass, a half-inch thickness that looked perfectly three-dimensional and deep. “I suppose after all this time you do deserve a turn on top...”  
  
Tsuzuki snarled. “You’re not touching them again, Muraki. Either of them.”  
  
Glimmer under the glass, and Hisoka wanted to warn his partner to be careful, that none of the danger was gone. But he didn’t want to distract him. He rolled onto his knees, cradling the baby, who seemed shaken, but still healthy enough to be screaming again. Shut up, he thought, irritated. I know everything is terror. Just... deal with it. The baby didn’t seem to notice. Above them, the shikigami waited, and Hisoka thought he caught a fiery satisfaction from Suzaku at finally seeing her master standing over his enemy.   
  
“Be that as it may,” Muraki said, “we’re still left with a question.” He shifted underneath Tsuzuki-- not struggling, just pressing his body against him, a subtle, seductive ripple. “Now that you have me, Tsuzuki-san... what are you going to do with me?”   
  
And Hisoka really could have lived without getting _that_ feeling from Tsuzuki, that memory of terrified, humiliated pleasure. Maybe that was what made him speak without thinking of anything except the screaming in his mind. “We’re going to kill you,” he said.   
  
Muraki smiled. “Really?” he asked Tsuzuki, less than a foot from his face, close enough to feel his breath. He met Tsuzuki’s eyes, which clouded with a confusion of feelings. “Did you hear that, Oriya? They’re going to kill me.”  
  
And there was a sword blade across the back of Hisoka’s neck, still slightly warm. “Can’t say I blame them for wanting to try,” Oriya said, his drawl marred a little by his panting. “You probably deserve it.”   
  
Muraki sighed. “Possibly,” he said. “You’d say that, wouldn’t you, Tsuzuki-san?” He raised his eyes to Tsuzuki again, a glint of humor in the silver. “After everything I’ve done... I offend your sense of justice, don’t I?” He sighed indulgently. “I expect you’re glad to finally have me at your mercy.”   
  
Tsuzuki said nothing, just stared down at the man underneath him. “Tsuzuki?” Hisoka called.  
  
Tsuzuki’s face was pale, his expression uncertain. “We can’t just...”  
  
“Tsuzuki,” Hisoka snapped. “Dead babies. Thirty of them. You’re not pitying _him_ now, are you? He’s a murderer.” He bit his tongue, swearing at himself.  
  
“That’s right, Tsuzuki-san,” Muraki put in smoothly. “You wouldn’t know anything about murder, would you?”  
  
Oriya made a quietly impressed noise, and Hisoka caught the thought-- _he’s going to get away with it again, isn’t he_? Hisoka glared. “This baby,” he said. “He’s been torturing him, Tsuzuki. He wants to keep torturing him for the rest of his life.” The baby screamed helpfully.  
  
Tsuzuki’s frown snapped back into place. “No,” he said. “I’m not letting you keep hurting him, Muraki.”  
  
The sword pressed harder against Hisoka’s neck. “There’ll be some consequences if you don’t,” Oriya said.   
  
Muraki shook his head as much as he could with the fuda against his throat. “No, Oriya, he’s quite right. I’ve committed very horrible crimes, right, Tsuzuki-san? You’d better kill me.” Darkness swirled under the glass. “You know how to kill, right, Tsuzuki-san? You’ve done it before... once or twice...” And now he was grinning. “A few hundred times...”  
  
“Shut up,” Tsuzuki growled. “I’m not like you.”  
  
“Oh?” Muraki said. “And if you kill me now, will that prove it?” He sighed, but his eyes were alight, fascinated. “I can’t stop you, you know. I’m helpless. You could probably even hit me a few times before you do it-- I know that’s what you want to do. Wouldn’t it feel good?” He shifted under Tsuzuki, stretching his neck up to hiss it. “I know how good that would feel...”  
  
And Hisoka could have cried, because Tsuzuki _let go_. And stood up, backing away, shaking and sick. “No,” he panted. “No.”


	13. Chapter Twelve

Tsuzuki didn’t get far-- Muraki was on him like a snake, knocking the fuda from his hand, snapping a one-word incantation that seemed to wrap parts of the sky around him. Hisoka had no time to think about it, because Muraki was charging again, furious eyes fixed on the baby. No! Hisoka thought, hearing himself shout, hoping it wasn’t a scream. It came out as a flash of panicked, furious light. For a moment, Muraki was lit by Hisoka’s rage, silver hair a blaze around his snarling face, and it didn’t stop him, he wasn’t stopping, but it took him by surprise long enough for Hisoka to throw up a frantic shield. Muraki slammed himself against the shield, striking it again and again, shaking Hisoka with every heavy slam of his body against it. The shield sparked, flashed, set fire to Muraki’s coat, and that was all the time Suzaku needed to free Tsuzuki and smash down both flaming wings on Muraki. Muraki disappeared under the flames and Hisoka couldn’t see him when Suzaku raised her wings. Where is he? Hisoka thought frantically. We can’t have gotten him, that easily, can we? Where...?   
  
“Hisoka!” Tsuzuki was standing in front of the shield, panting, swearing in horror at his own mistake. “Behind you!”  
  
Hisoka started to spin, winced at the sudden sharp pain across his neck. “Watch it,” Oriya cautioned, and they both blinked at the incongruity of his warning. He’s inside my shield, Hisoka thought. I made the shield with him inside it. Oh... crap.   
  
“Clever, boy,” came a voice from beside him, just outside the shield and terribly amused. “You always did have a flair for the impractical, didn’t you?”  
  
“Muraki!” Tsuzuki spat, casting fuda again, “You--”   
  
Muraki stepped around the shield, using it to block Tsuzuki’s fuda, Oriya pivoting slightly to keep him in sight. “Me?” he asked. “Tsuzuki-san, I’m just standing here.” He rested a hand against the shield. “It’s Oriya who’s going to kill your partner now.”  
  
“It is?” Oriya asked. “How do you figure that?”  
  
The baby wailed again. Muraki frowned very slightly. “They’re after Saki-chan,” Muraki said, hissing the name. “Look at them. They want to _save_ him, Oriya. They think he’s innocent.” He leaned into the shield. “You know better.”  
  
Oriya watched the firelight glinting off Muraki’s mechanical eye. “Could be.”  
  
“He _is_ innocent,” Tsuzuki spat. “He’s a _baby_ , for gods’ sake.” He put a fist against the shield, glaring at Oriya, and Hisoka could feel his furious desperation. “Don’t touch them. Either of them.” Byakko was at his shoulder, growling thunder. “Put the sword _down_.”  
  
“Or what, Tsuzuki-san?” Muraki asked. “You’ll cry at him?”  
  
Tsuzuki snarled, and Byakko echoed it, leaping over the shield at Muraki. Muraki’s casual finger-snap summoned something huge and slime-covered, and Byakko closed with it, wrestling through somebody’s bushes. Muraki smirked.  
  
Oriya moved the sword back slightly, enough for Hisoka’s neck to start to heal. “You could just give me the baby,” Oriya mentioned. “It’d be the smart thing to do.”  
  
“No.” Hisoka gritted his teeth, finding it almost impossible to keep the focus he needed to hold the shield up with the emotions swirling through him-- the baby’s terror, Tsuzuki’s adrenaline, Muraki’s fury, Oriya... Oriya was complicated. “And what-- give it back to him to torture? Again?” The baby was screaming in his mind, but Hisoka thought he could find a hint of nausea at the thought. Not his. Not Tsuzuki’s. “Forever?”   
  
“It’s _not_ your concern, boy.” Muraki was so close, just outside the shield, close enough to choke Hisoka’s breath. “He has nothing to do with you.”   
  
Doubt, Hisoka felt, almost too subtle to catch with all the screaming, but it was definitely Oriya’s-- doubt about the whole thing, mounting for days. His sword was right there at Hisoka’s neck, just one stroke away. But.   
  
There was a crash as Suzaku, furious at the delay, dove to earth, pouncing on Muraki again, shaking the ground under them. Muraki disappeared in a column of light, reappearing behind Tsuzuki, fast enough to pin him, summoning snakes to entangle Suzaku’s wings. “Boy,” Muraki said, “ _Now_.”   
  
Hisoka swore. Tsuzuki struggled, trying to break free, but Muraki’s grip was too tight, too strong. “Now,” Muraki said. “Give him back. You’re outmatched.”  
  
Tsuzuki was so frantic, Hisoka could feel Muraki’s hands on him, Muraki’s chest against his back, his breath on his neck... “Am I, Mibu-san?” Hisoka panted. “I won’t give him up unless you kill me.” The baby had stopped screaming, too terrified to move.   
  
“That wouldn’t be difficult,” Muraki said. “Oriya-- if you please.”   
  
“Don’t,” Tsuzuki spat. “No!”   
  
Oriya hesitated. “I suppose it’s too late to talk about it?” he said.  
  
“He’ll destroy him,” Hisoka said. “If you kill me, Mibu-san. He’ll torture him until there’s nothing left.” And he might be talking about Tsuzuki, too, he couldn’t let that happen, but he could feel Oriya’s doubt...   
  
“You know what he did,” Muraki said. “I told you, Oriya.”   
  
“You didn’t, actually,” Oriya said. “I had to guess, from what you didn’t say.” And that was a memory-chain Hisoka didn’t enjoy falling into-- quick, staccato conversations, woven through with the feeling of something gone horribly, horribly wrong, and knowing, on some level, that he wasn’t old enough to understand what was going on.   
  
“Would you have wanted me to tell you?” Muraki asked. “You seemed perfectly content at the time to tell me to cheer up and come have tea.”   
  
Old guilt, Hisoka felt, slowly transforming over years of sorrow, and the thought-- _I didn’t know. I was sixteen. I’d only known you for a year. How was I supposed to know?_ “Kill him,” Muraki said. “And give Saki back to me.” His hand twitched on the shield. “Please.”   
  
Oriya hesitated. “Muraki,” he said, reasonably, but Hisoka didn’t believe the calm. “There are other ways out of this.” He took one hand off the sword to push his hair out of his eyes. “If they take him, then--”  
  
“That won’t happen,” Muraki said. “He’s mine, Oriya. That’s all.” He wasn’t keeping his calm, either. “I won’t ask you for another favor, I promise. This is the last. Just get my brother back.”   
  
“Oh?” Oriya said. Regret was a cloud, but he could feel solid ground underneath it, just for the moment. “When have I heard that before?” And Hisoka drew a deep breath, because he felt the sword easing away from his neck, heard Oriya shaking the blood off of it.   
  
Muraki blinked, and Hisoka had not seen him really taken aback before. “Oriya...” Tsuzuki twisted, trying to take advantage of Muraki’s distraction, and Muraki’s face tightened. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose,” Muraki said, shifting his grip on Tsuzuki, bringing up one hand to cup his chin. “There are other ways, aren’t there, boy?” He ground his hips into Tsuzuki’s back, and Tsuzuki’s eyes went wide. “I have your partner. Drop the shield.”   
  
Hisoka felt his lips pull back in a snarl. “No.”  
  
“No?” Muraki asked, bringing one hand around to stroke Tsuzuki’s chest.  
  
“No,” Tsuzuki panted, looking Hisoka in the eye. He was grimacing at Muraki’s touch, but trying not to show any other sign of fear. “Hisoka, take Saki-chan and get him to safety. That’s what we came for. That’s what matters.”   
  
Muraki shoved Tsuzuki to the ground, pressing his face into the dirt. Suzaku shrieked with Hisoka’s frantic frustration. “Try that and you’ll never see your partner again,” Muraki said, and there were cracks in the glass over his emotions, that fury glinting through. “I might send you pieces, now and then.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Tsuzuki said, spitting out dirt and grass. “Go!”  
  
 _Enough,_ Hisoka thought. Dammit. Just... enough. He stared at Muraki, trying again to read him, to get some sense of something other than darkness inside him. “Muraki,” he spat, frustrated beyond rational thought, “why are you doing this?”  
  
Muraki was still focused on the baby in Hisoka’s arms. “Because it amuses me. Put him _down_ , boy.”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “That’s not enough. That’s never been enough.” He didn’t care about his shield, barely cared about the baby, was hardly even thinking about Tsuzuki-- he had to know. “You killed me. You killed dozens of people. _Why_?”  
  
Behind him, Hisoka felt Oriya wonder the same thing.  
  
“That’s not your concern,” Muraki said, his hands moving on Tsuzuki. “Do you really want to worry about _why_ I’m about to take your partner, or do you want to stop me?”  
  
“The former, honestly,” Oriya said. “Kazutaka, you _killed Saki_. Thirty times now. Do you still need to be like this?”   
  
Muraki shrugged, the glass trembling. “Oriya,” he said. “You didn’t think that I’m-- like this-- only because of him, did you?” He smiled. “I always had this within me. I simply stopped fighting it.”   
  
Oriya shook his head. “No.”   
  
Muraki pushed up his glasses, shaking off the topic. “Drop the shield, boy. Or Tsuzuki-san and I can show you how we kept ourselves occupied back in Kyoto while you were off wasting time...” He moved fast, spinning Tsuzuki onto his back, hands pinned above his head, bringing one free hand down to start to unbutton Tsuzuki’s shirt. Tsuzuki struggled, furiously conscious of Hisoka’s eyes. Muraki looked to Hisoka.   
  
“Don’t,” Tsuzuki panted. “Hisoka. Don’t...” His breath stuttered as Muraki pulled his shirt open, started running his hand over his bare skin. “Please. Don’t let him have him. I don’t matter, just...” Muraki’s hand trailed down, over his belt and lower, and Tsuzuki closed his eyes. “Get him away...”  
  
“Ch,” Oriya put in, nonchalance fraying. “Muraki, you can’t just rape him on the front lawn. People will complain, you know.” He glanced up at Suzaku, entangled and shrieking above him, at Byakko still wrestling the summons in the street. “Surprised they haven’t already.”   
  
“Of course,” Muraki said. “But I doubt the boy here will let it go that far. Will you, boy?” He pinched through the fabric of Tsuzuki’s pants, and Tsuzuki bit his lip, trying not to cry out. “You’ll put my brother down.”   
  
_FEAR that voice pain FEAR that voice food pain warmth pain dryness pain FEAR heartbeat FEAR crying FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR_ and on top of that Tsuzuki feeling _sick dirty familiar dread humiliation and desperate fear that Hisoka would agree, that his weakness would show and another innocent would suffer for it_ and on top of that Muraki, and Muraki was so horribly different, because all their feelings were there in him, too, transformed because _he_ was the one causing them, but still there...  
  
“Your brother did that to you,” Hisoka said, with sudden malicious certainty, “right, Muraki? That’s where you learned how.”   
  
Muraki snarled. “So you do need another demonstration, boy?” He clenched his hand, squeezing Tsuzuki sharply in his fist, and Tsuzuki couldn’t keep a whimper from escaping gritted teeth, and Hisoka wanted to kill.  
  
He couldn’t. But he could hurt him, he thought. “You were my age back then, right? I’ll bet you’d never even heard of that before. I hadn’t.” He half-laughed. “I’ll bet you were really surprised when he came at you, weren’t you? Did you try to fight back, or were you too stunned to do anything but let him?”  
  
“ _Kid_ ,” Oriya growled, “ _shut up_.”   
  
Hisoka ignored him, a rising battle-mad elation driving him on. “Did you scream?” he asked. “Like me? Or were you too proud? At first?” Memories under the glass, pounding against the surface, and if Hisoka had wanted to see into Muraki’s darkness, it was right here, it was ready to overwhelm him. “I’ll bet you cried. I’ll bet he hurt you like nothing else ever had, when he started to fuck you. Right? I’ll bet you couldn’t believe anything could hurt that much.” His own memories were crashing, but they didn’t block his vision, he could still feel Muraki there with him, and he couldn’t tell any more whose remembered pain and fury this was. “I’ll bet you could see your whole world crashing down around you. Right?” His own voice was unrecognizable, torn by something, laughter or sobs, he couldn’t tell. “Him killing your parents barely mattered after that, right? It’s not like they’d kept you safe...”  
  
And it was so fast, he was on the ground, Oriya jumping clear with an exclamation just in time, Muraki bursting through Hisoka’s shield and on him, hands around his neck. The baby screamed so loudly that it sounded like Hisoka’s own panic, and Muraki was efficiently brutal, choking the breath out of him, stopping his voice, making him _shut up, shut up, just_ shut up _about things no-one had any business knowing, brat, horrible little bastard..._ and Hisoka struggled for breath, struggled to stay conscious, there was darkness behind his eyes, and then there were flames.  
  
Hisoka winced in the brightness as Muraki’s hands were torn loose from him. He blinked up to see the flaming talons fasten around Muraki, bearing him aloft-- Muraki must have lost control of his summons, and Suzaku finally had him. She crowed her triumph, diving down to pin Muraki to the ground, her claws holding him down tightly enough to bend his ribs. Tsuzuki was half-kneeling, hand still extended to direct her. Byakko crouched, but Tsuzuki shouted, redirecting his pounce to the new monsters Muraki was calling up, many-headed, many-legged things, their necks twisting to find the phoenix. Then Tsuzuki was summoning, head bent in prayer, power absolutely focused. Sohryuu’s wings stretched over the nearby houses, keeping debris from crushing any of the people within, and Touda stretched smoke-enshrouded above them all. The ground shook.   
  
Tsuzuki collapsed next to Hisoka, panting hard. He put a hand to Hisoka’s shoulder, projecting his thoughts-- it was too loud to speak. _Are you all right?  
_  
  
Fine, Hisoka tried to send back, but he couldn’t lie with his mind. _So surprised, he was so horribly surprised back then, and it hurt, and I remember how that feels. Like nothing can ever be right again..._  
  
 _I know,_ Tsuzuki sent. _I know. But let’s talk about it later, huh?_ He shouted again, voice inaudible over the thunder in Hisoka’s ears, but Touda heard it well enough to twist in the air and incinerate a monster threatening to freeze them. Tsuzuki’s mind was going in a dozen directions, holding each shikigami, tracking on each of Muraki’s new summons, watching out for the neighbors, leaning in to check Hisoka’s breathing and his state of mind, making sure the baby was all right, noticing Oriya pick himself up from the ground, shaking, and start to charge toward Suzaku-- _oh, hell. Come on!_  
  
Hisoka staggered to his feet, watching Tsuzuki race off onto the battlefield after Oriya. The baby in his arms was catatonic with terror, overwhelmed by the sound and light and shaking. Hisoka wasn’t doing that well himself. Muraki hurt, he thought, he hurt so much. I remember that hurt. I remember that fear and humiliation and wrongness, and he did it to me, but he remembers it too, and he hurt. I hadn’t thought of him hurting. Ever. He doesn’t think of himself hurting, he doesn’t let himself remember, but it’s there. It was always there. I just didn’t see it. Hisoka wasn’t sure how he was standing-- his knees felt too weak and his head swam. I hurt him, he thought. I reminded him. Like when he brought my memory back. I just did the same thing to him. I... I just did to him what he did to me, a little bit. And Hisoka would have enjoyed that thought a lot more, except that he could _feel_ it. And it _hurt._ I never thought of that, Hisoka thought. I never realized I would hurt him, when I took my vengeance. Not really. I... it hurts. He glanced over at Muraki, still pinned beneath the phoenix’s claws. It hurts.  
  
He stumbled forward, the shikigami dodging to avoid him. Tsuzuki hadn’t arrived in time to keep Oriya from attacking Suzaku, but he did manage to halt her counterattack. Oriya was trying to shake him off, determined to get past him. Suzaku, shrieking in triumph, bent to drive her curving beak into Muraki’s head, and Oriya struggled with Tsuzuki, mouth open wide in a shout. Tsuzuki held him, not stopping the shikigami’s strike. She stooped.  
  
And, a moment later, crowed in frustration, because Muraki was still there, uninjured, calmly summoning. Her attack did nothing. Right, Hisoka thought numbly, she’s just a god. You can’t kill an angel that way. He cudgeled his brain, trying to force it to remember what he’d read, yesterday, a thousand years ago-- you have to take away what makes them not human. And for Muraki-- he felt the fear in his arms, in front of him, within him, but none from Muraki, even in the god’s talons. The only thing he could feel now, behind the shattered glass, was rage. That’s what keeps him here, Hisoka thought. Rage at his brother. That’s how he stays alive-- he can’t die until he’s had his revenge. Except... he’s not stopping, he remembered Oriya saying. He’s killed him thirty times now, it doesn’t fix anything. And it won’t, Hisoka thought. It won’t make Muraki the person he was before. It won’t make the last twenty years of killing go away. He’s trapped. Hatred is a trap, she’d said. It stops someone from moving through the cycle. That’s why he’s here. That’s why I’m here-- I was so furious at him for killing me, for violating me, that I couldn’t move on. It seemed irrelevant, but he could remember that feeling-- his life finally over, the pain in his body finally gone, but not at rest. No rest, no peace, just fury, keeping him bound to the world, bound to the job and the paperwork and all the annoyances of his partner... Hisoka shook his head, trying to clear it-- why am I thinking about that now? It has nothing to do with this.  
  
Except that it did. Trapped, Hisoka thought. Of course he isn’t afraid of Suzaku holding him-- what difference can it make to him? He’s already held. Like me. Like Tsuzuki. We’re not free. None of us are free, none of us can imagine what it would be like.   
  
But I know someone who could.   
  
Hisoka snarled, staring at Muraki, who was smirking at the shikigami’s frustration. But I hate him so much, he thought. I’ve been hating him so long. How can I stop now? Just because he hurts? Just because he’s held down? Just because he’s like me?   
  
He’s like me. He’s so like me.   
  
And no-one’s going to do this for me.   
  
But... dammit, it should end for _somebody._   
  
All right, Hisoka thought. Then. All right. And this had better work, he directed the thought at the sky, or I’ll _never_ forgive You. Ever.   
  
Hisoka stood still, summoning memories. Calm, he remembered, Tsuzuki always brings himself to calm. Focus. He shifted the baby to one arm, bringing the other to his lips, trying to remember. The motions themselves don’t matter so much, Tsuzuki had said, it’s what’s in your heart that they hear. Hisoka didn’t know whether his heart was suited for this at all. She hadn’t seemed to think so last night. But.   
  
He took a deep breath. “I humbly bow and beseech the boddhisattva who watches over me,” his eyes closing on the scene in front of him, directing his focus inwards, searching, needing to find some answer. “Salvation to any who call Your name, making Hells into Heaven,” and maybe this was working, it felt like something stirring in him, something deep. “The thousand hands, the hearing ear, the lotus blossom,” he raised his voice in a shout, sending every bit of himself out with it: “ _Come out, Kwannon!_ ”


	14. Chapter Thirteen

Nothing, at first, just long enough to begin to fear, and then the fear was gone. Not gone, exactly, but intensified, saturated with something-- meaning, maybe. Order. Pattern. Everything he felt, everything within him seemed suddenly set in place, part of a dance, warm and worthy-- loved. There was nothing inside him that was not worthy of affection, of understanding. There was nothing in him that was not holy. Hisoka blinked, feeling the weight of the fear suddenly lift away. In his arms, the baby stopped crying.  
  
Oh, Hisoka thought. Is that peace, then? Strange.  
  
And not really the place for it. Hisoka considered the sight in front of him. The shikigami were still swirling, furious at being denied their prey and taking that fury out on the creatures Muraki summoned out of the hells to do his work. Poor things, Hisoka heard himself thinking. It’s not their will to be here. They barely have wills, except to destroy, to try to evade their own emptiness. They can’t exist without that pain. Nothing to do for them except send them back to hell, and he remembered the feeling of light building around him, remembered how he’d released it before, but that was only rage, like a fluorescent bulb-- this was a star. Light flashed out of him in a wave, taking the monsters with it, dispersing them back to the corruption of elements they’d come from. The shikigami pulled up short, their opponents gone. Hisoka walked forward.  
  
Oriya was still facing off with Tsuzuki, trying to drive past him, and it was taking all of Tsuzuki’s attention to keep him off. “No,” Tsuzuki was panting. “Will you listen? It won’t do any good. She’s a god. You’d just get burned.”  
  
Oriya was laughing. “You said that already,” he said. “Get out of my way.”  
  
“Mibu-san,” Hisoka said, and he shouldn’t have been able to get this close without Oriya noticing, but he had, and he put his hand on the swordsman’s arm. Hisoka was still afraid, he could see his own fear, but it was just as worthwhile a part of him as any other, and he didn’t let it stop him. “Didn’t you want your friend back?”  
  
Oriya spun, and the sword sliced through Hisoka’s shoulder, and the pain was also a part of him, but not enough to turn him away. Oriya squinted, and Hisoka realized that the swordmaster’s face was illuminated, brightly. As was Tsuzuki’s, as was everything else around them. Is that me? Hisoka wondered. Am I glowing? “Kid? The hell?”  
  
Not exactly, Hisoka thought, his own hysteria just as illuminated and right as everything else. But. “He’s been trapped here,” Hisoka said, “ever since that day. Caught up in his rage.” He met Tsuzuki’s eyes, which were shining, reflecting his light. “I know something about that, I guess. And I... we can set him free.” He stepped forward again, putting his hand on Oriya’s sword. “Let us let him go?”   
  
Oriya raised an eyebrow. “You’re awfully worried about him, all of a sudden.”  
  
“Aren’t you?” Hisoka asked, knowing the answer. “But you can’t help him. I can’t, even if I wanted to. She can.”  
  
Oriya frowned. Then his eyes widened. “Ah.” He backed away, slowly, the winds of his emotions dying down for a moment, leaving only quiet stone. He saw something, Hisoka thought. Not sure what. What _does_ this look like now?   
  
_Hisoka?_ Tsuzuki questioned. _What are you doing?_  
  
 _I have no idea,_ Hisoka sent back. _Well, sort of._ And then he just had to stare, because Tsuzuki was... Tsuzuki was already starlit, all on his own. Tsuzuki shone. And his flames were beautiful, so beautiful Hisoka wanted to simply fall to his knees and look at him, because even possessed this way he couldn’t understand Tsuzuki’s beauty if he studied him forever. _I love you._  
  
 _Yes. Me too._ Tsuzuki was hesitating, still blocking Hisoka’s path. _You’re... all right?_  
  
Hisoka half-smiled. _I’m pretty sure, yes_. “All right” wasn’t the right word for this wholeness. _Tsuzuki-- want to do what we came for?_  
  
Tsuzuki nodded. “Yes,” he said, and with the battle over, it was quiet enough to hear him speak again. The baby was still calm in Hisoka’s arms.   
  
Muraki lay under Suzaku’s straining claws, limbs trapped, summons blocked. He could turn his head, though, to see them coming. “Shinigami,” he said, “this is getting boring.”   
  
Tsuzuki half-laughed. “So give up.”   
  
Muraki sighed. “I suppose,” he said, “that it should make no difference to me if you want to keep wasting your energy.” He smiled. “It is very satisfying to watch your frustration, though. You just don’t stop, do you?”  
  
Hisoka watched his own anger spark. “No,” he said. The anger was part of him. It wasn’t truly for Muraki, he supposed, in some ways. It was his own, after all. He might as well claim it. “No matter what you do. We don’t.”   
  
Muraki sighed. “Don’t you think it’s a little undignified, boy, to keep panting after me like this? I’d think you’d have some pride about it.”   
  
Hisoka shook his head. “Not at the moment,” he said. He knelt beside Muraki, feeling the heat of Suzaku’s flaming talons mere inches away. Above him, she keened, and Tsuzuki quickly reassured her, warning her beak away.   
  
“It’s over,” Tsuzuki said.   
  
“No,” Muraki said. “It’s not.” His eyes fixed on the baby in Hisoka’s arms. “Not until I have my revenge.”  
  
“You have it,” Hisoka said. He held the baby down. “Look at him. His whole world is fear. He doesn’t know anything else.” The baby stirred, uneasy. Muraki’s eyes followed him, unblinking, magnetized. “He took your world away, right? Well, you’ve given him one. And its whole language is pain.” Like you almost did to mine, Hisoka thought, and his own anger did come out in his voice. “Isn’t that enough?”  
  
Muraki shook his head. “No. I’m afraid not.”   
  
Hisoka stared down at Muraki, a confusion of emotions running through his mind. He still hated him, he realized. He still felt that fear, from way back then, he still wanted his innocence back. He couldn’t have that either, he realized. And it didn’t matter. They were here, just now. And Muraki was trapped, held by his own hatred, held by Hisoka’s. That hatred... he could see it now, clearly. He did so much to me, Hisoka thought. He made me afraid of my own body. I’ve spent years terrified of him touching me again. As if just his thoughts, just his desire could destroy me. He’s held me. Even when he wasn’t there, even when he was worlds away, I could still feel him. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop hating him, because I couldn’t get away from the fear of his touch.   
  
And now? he heard the thought in his head, and it wasn’t his own thought. But none of the people around him could read minds.  
  
Now it’s your turn, Hisoka answered. I’ve got him for you. Take him.   
  
A sigh, deep as worlds. Then I would be gone, he heard, taking him with Me, leaving you behind. And there you’d be, with all your anger still holding you, but no-one to turn it on except yourself. Is that what you want?   
  
No, Hisoka thought, and he could still see the brightness of his own anger. You forgive everyone, don’t you? Even him. If I... if I did what you want, you’d take him off with you, and we’d be here. And we’d have killed an angel. And they’d send us to Hell for it.  
  
Yes, he heard. That’s true.  
  
It’s not _fair._   
  
No.   
  
Tsuzuki shifted next to Hisoka, watching him, ready to move. But if I don’t do this, Hisoka thought, then what? We let him go? He’ll come after us, he’ll find the baby eventually. And then... blood, and Tsuzuki will have failed again. Tsuzuki can’t do that again. I won’t let that happen.   
  
Then free him, he heard.   
  
But, Hisoka thought, and his own rebellion was right too, in its own way. But partly because of its potential for transformation. He killed me, Hisoka thought. He raped me. He carved things into my skin. He--   
  
He hurt you, and she meant it, she understood, he could feel how well she understood every detail of how Muraki had hurt him. Do you want to keep being hurt?   
  
The world seemed frozen around him-- Tsuzuki by his side, the baby nervous on his lap, Oriya behind him, the gods above... and Muraki. Hisoka’s personal nightmare, the memory that struck him down over and over, his villain. Muraki, right there, barely noticing him, just seeing old horrors in the face of a baby.   
  
You can hold him here, he heard. If that’s what you want. The two of you can stay in this world and suffer forever, if you like. You’re both immortal. It’s up to you, boy.   
  
He deserves it, Hisoka thought. He does deserve it.  
  
I don’t know much about what anyone deserves, he heard again.  
  
I do, Hisoka thought. He deserves to suffer. Tsuzuki deserves to be at peace. And I... I don’t know what I deserve. I just wish that, just for once, I could stop being so damn scared.   
  
Then stop, he heard. It’s up to you, son. Make your choice.   
  
Hisoka blew out his breath, watching his energy swirl in it. Then he leaned forward and kissed Muraki full on the lips.  
  
He had not felt a boddhisattva move through him before, and he did not have anything to compare it to. Because the light that had come into him was shining into Muraki’s darkness, illuminating it, showing it for what it was, and the darkness did not dissipate, but Hisoka could see what lay within it. And he could see why she loved it-- the intelligence, the wry humor, the nobility of the man, living his life exactly as he saw fit, not letting man or heaven tell him differently. She loved the ferocity, the way Muraki let himself follow his instincts and revel in them. Muraki bit Hisoka’s lip, hard, and Hisoka let the blood pool in their mouths, realizing that he wasn’t afraid of the contact, wasn’t afraid any more of Muraki’s wanting him or hurting him-- _ouch. Bastard. That’s how you want to go, fine. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re set free, Muraki. She wants your rage. She’ll have it. Let it go. I’m not going to hold you here any more. Let it go._  
  
 _Boy,_ Muraki sent, _you still don’t know what you’re interfering with._ He twisted, digging his teeth into Hisoka’s mouth. _You never have._  
  
 _Do I care?_ Hisoka asked. _Let go, dammit. She can give you peace. You need it.  
  
Not yet,_ Muraki sent. _Not yet.  
  
It’s all right, son._ said the gravelly voice in the back of Hisoka’s head. _You’ve done it. I can take things from here._ And then everything spun around him, and then she was rushing through him, rushing out of him, and he remembered falling through the world last night, but now the world was falling through _him_. Hisoka collapsed backwards into Tsuzuki’s arms, and Muraki shook, arching his back, shouting. There was a shiver in the world, and Muraki’s eyes opened, just long enough to fix on the baby in Hisoka’s arms again. Then Suzaku’s claws, long straining, finally snapped shut. There was a wash of flame. There was a shout. There was silence.   
  
“Suzaku,” Tsuzuki whispered. “Let go.” She keened above him, but took flight.  
  
“Over,” Hisoka whispered, staring. Muraki’s body lay on the ground, and was just that-- a body. He was gone. None of the wrongness of the time on the ship, none of the lurking malevolence... just gone. He swallowed. “It’s over.”  
  
Oriya fell to his knees. “Damn,” he murmured. “Guess I could have expected that.” The tears streamed down his face. “Damn it.”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “She has him, Mibu-san. It’s okay.”  
  
Oriya buried his head in his hands. “No,” he said, choking on the words. “Wrong word, kid. It won’t be ‘okay’ for a very long time.”   
  
“Maybe not,” Tsuzuki said. His arms were tight around Hisoka, and around the baby. “But maybe...” He bent his head. “Hisoka-- you’re all right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said. This time, he wasn’t lying. “You?”  
  
Tsuzuki nodded. “Yes,” he said, and in that moment, he really was. Hisoka leaned back, basking in it.  
  
It lasted a few seconds, and they were a good few seconds to have. Then the world came back-- fire alarms, flames, sirens in the distance, coming closer.  
  
Hisoka jerked upright, startling the baby, who started to howl again. Hisoka winced. He hadn’t missed the sound. “Calm down,” he tried. “Stop that.” The baby screamed. Oriya winced at the sound.  
  
“It’s okay,” Tsuzuki tried, stroking the baby’s head, face falling as the baby paid no attention. “You’re safe, now.” The shrieking hurt their ears.   
  
Oriya straightened up, leaving his sword sheathed on the ground. “Let me try.”  
  
Tsuzuki frowned. “What for?”  
  
Oriya raised an eyebrow. “What, were you planning to raise him off in the other world?” he asked. “Hell of a childhood.” He held his arms out. “He’s had a bad enough time already,” he said softly. “I owe it to him, don’t you think?”  
  
Tsuzuki hesitated. “But you were here with Muraki that whole time,” he said. “You never stopped him.”  
  
“I know,” Oriya said. He sighed. “I never did.” He shrugged. “He was who he was. Murders and all. I knew that.” He sighed, a very long release. His eyes rested on the baby. “But look at him. He could be anything, couldn’t he? If he has a fair shot at it.”   
  
It made sense to Hisoka. Mostly, it meant he wouldn’t have a screaming baby in his arms. “You want to raise him?”  
  
Oriya nodded. “Yeah. I do.”  
  
Tsuzuki was still frowning. “But he’s...” He glanced down at the baby. “He’s important.”  
  
“He’s a kid,” Oriya said. “Any kid’s important, if he’s yours.”   
  
Hisoka supposed he might be. Mostly, he was terrified-- still, always-- and Hisoka wasn’t doing anything for him. He didn’t know how. “We should let him,” Hisoka said. “He’s not lying. He’ll take good care of him.” He met Oriya’s eyes. _And I always did well going by his advice_ , he sent to Tsuzuki, noticing abstractly how easy that had become. _He’ll do well by him._  
  
 _...all right._ Tsuzuki put out his hands. “Can I hold him for a sec?”   
  
Hisoka handed the little body over gladly. Tsuzuki cradled the baby, gazing down into the face screwed up into a howling scowl. _I know,_ Hisoka caught from Tsuzuki. _You’re right. It is just like that..._ He sighed, holding the baby close, face bent down to cuddle the child. _But maybe it doesn’t have to be, for you._ Tsuzuki kissed the baby on the forehead, and it screamed. Tsuzuki sighed. Then he fixed Oriya with his most serious glare. “You will take good care of him.”  
  
“Yeah,” Oriya said, and it sounded like an oath to Hisoka. “It all gets better from here.”  
  
Hisoka had his doubts about that. But I suppose for him at least, he thought, there’s nowhere to go but up. Lucky him. Tsuzuki gave one more gentle squeeze, then carefully handed the baby over. Oriya cradled it. “Shhhhh,” Oriya tried. The baby howled. Oriya sighed. “Well. Guess it’ll take some doing, hm?” He raised his eyes. “You’ll want to get out of here, shinigami. Unless you want to explain your giant flaming snake to the neighborhood police.”   
  
Tsuzuki gestured quickly, sending the shikigami away. They disappeared with howls and crows, leaving a suddenly empty street behind them. “So,” he said, “that’s all, I guess.” He nodded at Oriya. “Good luck.”   
  
Oriya nodded, his attention half taken up by the baby. “Drop by sometime, would you?”  
  
Hisoka and Tsuzuki exchanged a glance. “If we can,” Hisoka said. I don’t think we’ll have the choice to.  
  
I think it was worth it.  
  
I’m _tired._  
  
They blinked out, heading for home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kwannon (aka Kanzeon Bosatsu, Kwan-Yin, Kannon, Kanjizai, Quan Shih Yin, Tara, Avalokitesvara, etc.) is the boddhisattva of compassion. Her name means “the One who Hears the Cries of the World.” She is said to give help and comfort to any to pray to her, and it is said that she will free anyone from the cycle of rebirth and cause them to be reborn in her land, simply by their calling her name.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

They were quiet when they arrived-- by unspoken consent, back at Tsuzuki’s apartment where all this had started, stopping by Hisoka’s apartment for a change of clothes. Hisoka explained to Tsuzuki about “Yin” on the way. “I hadn’t known whether I could summon a boddhisattva,” he said. “I’m still not sure I did-- your summons never seem to possess you like that.” He shrugged. “But she’s supposed to help everyone who calls her name, so...”   
  
“So she came,” Tsuzuki said. “To you.”   
  
Hisoka rolled his eyes. “She likes you better, anyway. You’re the one she’s been hanging around with for... how long, now?”  
  
“A while,” Tsuzuki said. “I don’t really remember. It seems like she’s always been there.”  
  
Hisoka frowned. “And you never thought that was strange?”   
  
“Well,” Tsuzuki said, “I always knew there was _something_ about her. But it didn’t seem polite to question it. You know?”  
  
Hisoka sighed. “I suppose. She could have done something _before_ now, though.”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “Guess I never asked.”  
  
“No,” Hisoka said. “I suppose not.”   
  
The apartment felt strangely normal to Hisoka. It seemed so odd that everything was just where they had left it that morning-- actually, only a few hours ago. Somehow, Hisoka hadn’t been expecting to see tables and curtains and candy-bar wrappers again, not after that. Muraki is dead, he thought. We killed him. Tsuzuki and I. He’s gone.   
  
And now... Hisoka hesitated inside the doorway, holding his shoes. Tsuzuki was sitting down on his couch, still wearing his trenchcoat, staring at his hands. “Tsuzuki,” Hisoka said. “It’s... it’s only about 3:00.”  
  
Tsuzuki raised an eyebrow. “I don’t really feel like going back to work, Hisoka...”  
  
Hisoka shook his head. “No. We shouldn’t.” He concentrated, a plan starting to spark his last reserves of adrenaline. “Maybe we shouldn’t go back at all,” he said. “They can’t sentence us if they can’t find us. We could stay on earth-- it might take them a while...”  
  
“No,” Tsuzuki said. He smiled sadly. “It’s a nice idea, but they’d find us. And Enma’d send Tatsumi to do it-- he’s the one who knows me best.” He shook his head. “I don’t want him to have to do that.” He blew out his breath. “He’ll be mad enough that we didn’t tell him about it before we left.”  
  
Hisoka put his shoes down, coming to join Tsuzuki on the couch. “You said you didn’t want to tell him.”  
  
“I didn’t,” Tsuzuki sighed. “He would have wanted to talk us out of it. Or he would have come along because he felt like he ought to, and that’s not enough of a reason to be...” He cut himself off. “Or he wouldn’t have done anything, and then he would have felt guilty about it for _ever._ ” He put his head back, staring up at the blank ceiling. “It just seemed like a lot of trouble.”   
  
One more thing to deal with? Hisoka thought, not disagreeing. He sat down next to Tsuzuki. “You sorry we did it?”  
  
“No,” Tsuzuki said decisively. “No. Saki-chan’s okay.”   
  
Is he? Hisoka wondered. He was _so_ hurt... “Mibu-san will take care of him,” he said. “He’s smart about people. And he does what he says he will.” Unless, he thought, that really is Saki’s karma. And then it’ll be that bad no matter what... He didn’t say it aloud.   
  
“So it’s worth it.” Tsuzuki said. He glanced over at Hisoka. “You finally got to kill Muraki.”  
  
“Yeah,” Hisoka said. “I should feel satisfied, right?”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged.   
  
“I do, I suppose,” Hisoka said. “But mostly because of what she did. I didn’t enjoy hurting him as much as I thought I would.” He thought back. “Except that I... I did enjoy it.” He felt Tsuzuki trying not to condemn that and winced. “But then he was hurt. I never thought of him as someone you really could hurt, you know?”   
  
“Yeah,” Tsuzuki said. “But everyone is.”   
  
Hisoka sighed. “I suppose.”   
  
Tsuzuki stared up at the ceiling. Hisoka just sat, eyes closed, listening to them breathe. “We saved him,” Tsuzuki said. “Saki-chan. We really did.” Hisoka didn’t need to open his eyes to feel his partner’s smile, but he wanted to see it anyway. Tsuzuki was beaming, the joyful realization sinking in. “He’ll be all right, now. Muraki will never touch him again. And maybe he’s young enough, he’ll forget all about that. Maybe he’ll never know what his life could have been like.” Tsuzuki’s voice was warm and strong and quietly triumphant. “We saved him.”  
  
Possibly, Hisoka thought, remembering the baby’s mind with misgiving. But we can’t do anything else for him now. And at least he has some kind of chance. “Yeah.”  
  
“And no-one suffered for it,” Tsuzuki said. “Even Muraki looked like he was better off, in the end. That... that’s never happened before, you know? That people weren’t hurt by what I did.”  
  
Well, Hisoka thought, except for us. “It’s what you always wanted,” he said.  
  
“Yeah,” Tsuzuki said. “It is.”   
  
Hisoka looked up at Tsuzuki’s smile and smiled back. Then that’s enough, he thought. I suppose that really is enough. It’ll have to be.  
  
Tsuzuki beamed at his smile, as he always did. But the beaming faded. “Hisoka?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“I don’t want to go.” Tsuzuki’s tone was almost amused, almost desperate, very simply knowing what he said made no difference, but saying it anyway. “Isn’t that ridiculous? I’ve been wanting to escape this life for so long, hating it, but now that I’m really going-- I don’t want to.” His breathing was stuttered. “I don’t want to stop being here. I don’t want to stop waking up and seeing the sun in the mornings. I don’t want to leave Tatsumi, and Watari, and...” He met Hisoka’s eyes. “I don’t want to leave you.”   
  
Little late now, sniped a voice in the back of Hisoka’s brain, and he ignored it as easily as he’d ignored his own fear a few hours ago. “I know,” he said. “I don’t either.” His own voice was shaky, and he didn’t care. “I spent my whole life alone,” he said. “And I kept trying to tell myself I didn’t hate it. Because there was no-one worth being with until I met you.” He closed his eyes. “The world only makes sense if you’re in it.”   
  
“Hisoka?” Tsuzuki said, “You know-- I didn’t want you to let me go.”  
  
Hisoka frowned. “Yes, you did.”  
  
“No,” Tsuzuki said. He took Hisoka’s hand, rough with soot and dried blood, but warm. “I wanted to go. Sometimes, I wished it didn’t matter that you were holding me. But I was so glad you were, Hisoka.” He cupped Hisoka’s hand between both of his, bringing it up to his mouth. “You weren’t what I wanted to leave.”  
  
He had known that, he really had, but he was still tearing up. And a small voice Hisoka did not recognize as his own said, “Really?”  
  
Tsuzuki drew in an appalled breath-- _you thought I...?_ He pulled Hisoka to him, wrapping him in a kiss. _Really. I never wanted to leave you. I never could. Never._  
  
Hisoka’s arms went around him, clinging tightly, kissing him urgently and hungrily, wanting to fill up with him. He felt like he couldn’t get close enough, he kept needing more, but his mind kept on going. _What do you mean, ‘never’? You used to think I was an obnoxious brat. Remember?_  
  
Tsuzuki pulled back. “Hey,” he complained, “don’t bring that up. I’m being romantic.” He turned perfectly wounded eyes on Hisoka, and Hisoka swore he could see little hearts circling his head.   
  
“What for?” Hisoka said. “It’s me.” He leaned his forehead against Tsuzuki’s, closing his eyes. “It’s us.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed. “It’s us,” he said. Hisoka opened his eyes to see Tsuzuki looking at him, too close for their eyes to focus, so all he saw was a wash of purple affection. He could feel his breath against his lips. “I’m glad it’s us.”   
  
Hisoka kissed him. _Yes_ , he sent. _I’m glad it’s you._ He breathed in deeply, taking the scent of Tsuzuki into himself-- smoke, right now, and old fear-sweat, but mostly that essential, perfectly _right_ smell of his partner. His hands ran up and down Tsuzuki’s back, twisting in his hair, Tsuzuki’s tongue in his mouth tasting his, Tsuzuki’s strong arm bent to hold them upright. Upright seemed like a pointless way to be. Hisoka tugged backwards, taking Tsuzuki’s weight onto himself, and it felt right to slip together this way, bodies intertwining, limbs and hips and mouths finding their way to the position where they fit perfectly, where every piece of them intersected and interlocked. Tsuzuki felt right, Hisoka thought. Just perfectly right. _Very glad._   
  
Hisoka’s hands met on Tsuzuki’s strong shoulders, on the muscles of his back, and the trenchcoat was perfectly him, just as it had been every time Tsuzuki had run to his rescue, but it was also getting in the way. He panted as Tsuzuki moved his mouth down, kissing his neck, the cleft of his shoulder. He tugged at the collar of Tsuzuki’s coat, trying to get it loose without losing contact. Tsuzuki shrugged it off his shoulders and slipped a hand under Hisoka’s shirt, tantalizing touch on his belly, skimming over the muscles of his chest. Hisoka inhaled sharply. “You’re not helping.”  
  
“I’m not?” Tsuzuki murmured, his mouth meeting his hand at the neckline of Hisoka’s shirt, working from the inside to bare more skin. “Really?”  
  
Hisoka closed his eyes. “You’re distracting,” he managed, and pulled Tsuzuki’s trenchcoat free, dropping it on the floor beside them. Hah.   
  
Tsuzuki grinned against his chest, unbuttoning his shirt from the inside. He paused. _That’s a lot of blood._  
  
Hisoka shrugged, shivering at the spring air from the window on his skin. “Mibu-san,” he said. “I had to fight him.” It seemed very long ago.  
  
Tsuzuki ran a gentle hand over the rent in Hisoka’s shirt, over the smooth, healed skin of his chest underneath it. _I didn’t mean for you to get hurt._  
  
 _It happens,_ Hisoka sent. _Actually, I almost forgot about it, with everything else that went on._  
  
Tsuzuki nodded agreement. His arms went around Hisoka, holding him tight, almost crushingly tight. _You called Her down,_ he thought. _You were amazing. You looked like the sun.  
  
So did you,_ Hisoka sent, remembering. _Tsuzuki. I had to borrow from her, but you... you’ve already got so much light in you._ He held his partner close, wishing he could see that light again, wishing he could use that light to see by.   
  
Tsuzuki closed his eyes. _No, I don’t._   
  
Hisoka kissed him. _And it’s beautiful._   
  
Tsuzuki warmed, Hisoka could feel it, and didn’t quite know what to do with the warmth. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “You know,” he said, “you’re just as sappy as I am. You just won’t say it out loud.”   
  
Hisoka tried for a glare. It was hard to do when he felt this embraced. “You’re full of it.”   
  
Tsuzuki smirked. “You can’t say what you just thought.”  
  
“You’re beautiful,” Hisoka said. _Hah._ But hearing it out loud made Tsuzuki‘s chest fill up with feeling, those words in Hisoka’s voice wearing away at very old scars. Maybe a thousand times more could wash them away completely. “Inside and out.”   
  
And there seemed to be very little Tsuzuki could think of to say to that. Hisoka watched his partner look down at him, emotions playing over his face like clouds in a high wind, sunlight and shadow. “Hisoka,” he said, “you’re home.”  
  
I am not tearing up, Hisoka decided. Not again. He reached for the top of Tsuzuki’s shirt, then stopped. “You’re wearing too much,” he complained, and put one hand squarely on the small of Tsuzuki’s back, pulling him closer, feeling the contact from both of them, getting hard through layers of cloth.   
  
Tsuzuki noticed the hesitation, realized why after a second of quick thought. _He’s dead, though,_ Hisoka caught, but it hadn’t been a deliberate sending, and he didn’t comment. Tsuzuki tugged his shirt free of his pants again and pulled it straight over his head, leaving Hisoka suddenly splendidly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bare skin around him. It was good to feel them together, skin to skin, heat to heat. Contact, Hisoka thought. Touch... he ran his hands over Tsuzuki’s back, kneading the skin, fingernails digging in just enough to feel _just_ right, and Tsuzuki arched his back into the touch. I am not afraid of touch, Hisoka thought. I feel so good underneath him. I feel right. I make sense. He thought that feeling probably came from both of them, and he was reveling in it enough that he didn’t care about figuring it out. Tsuzuki’s mouth was moving over his chest and he gasped, head back, eyes closed. The lines of the curse were fading, he realized, and becoming more sensitive as they did. They thrummed to Tsuzuki’s touch. Hisoka felt a surge of delight-- it was _his_ body. The marks of Muraki’s claim were disappearing. And before they did, they could be turned to his purposes, if he wanted. He wanted. He put a hand to Tsuzuki’s head, guiding his mouth across the marks as they started to stand up red for the last time, and Tsuzuki opened his eyes, startled, ready to pull back. _Are you all right?  
  
Yes,_ Hisoka sent, definitively, triumphantly. _They’re_ going. _I'm free of him. And it feels good, if you touch them as they go. Kiss them away._ He hesitated for a moment. “Do they bother you?”   
  
Tsuzuki bent his head to kiss them in answer. _Not at all. Not if they don’t bother you.  
  
Not any more,_ Hisoka sent. _Never again._ And his partner felt teary again, but mostly, he felt like warm wet heat flickering down the red lines, and like pure satisfaction when Hisoka couldn’t hold back a moan. He likes the sound, Hisoka thought hazily, and moaned again and felt the sound stirring Tsuzuki, urging him on. And it’s all right, with him, it’s okay.   
  
Tsuzuki’s hand found the buttons of his jeans, didn’t open them right away, just stroked him through them and Hisoka could feel every button, almost every stitch, and the noise he made was probably a whimper. It was so good to see him like this, he felt, open like this, defenses down... almost like he felt safe. _Never thought that was possible,_ he caught, and he was too much in his body to answer. Too aware of Tsuzuki’s mouth on his neck, of his hand over his cock, almost teasing, but every motion felt so _good_. He panted, clinging to Tsuzuki’s broad bare back, incoherent. Not just me, though, he thought, and fumbled with Tsuzuki’s belt buckle. Hard to concentrate, his fingers stumbled, clenched as Tsuzuki touched him _just_ right, but Hisoka was good at a challenge, and he brought his other hand up, getting in Tsuzuki’s way, getting the belt open, the pants unbuttoned and unzipped. _Hah_ , he sent, skimming Tsuzuki’s clothes down, baring hips and thighs and cock to his hands, reveling in the way his partner’s muscles flexed, in the way his hands left trails of sensation as they stroked their way up his inner thigh to hold his erection, hard and utterly focused on his touch.  
  
Tsuzuki moaned, his own hands fumbling. “Hey,” he panted, “Hisoka...”  
  
And his hands, practiced after months, knew just where to go, just how to caress him, just the right spots to tighten and stroke, “Mm?”  
  
“Open your eyes.”   
  
Hisoka did so, hands stopping. Tsuzuki’s didn’t, and Hisoka moaned, eyes closing automatically at the deepening sensation. Tsuzuki’s breath tickled his ear. “I want to see you,” he murmured, unbuttoning Hisoka’s jeans with one hand. _Especially if it’s the last time... I don’t want to go without seeing your face when I touch you._  
  
Hisoka did open his eyes, to frown. “What for?”   
  
Tsuzuki smiled at him. “To be with you,” he said. _Not anywhere else. Not off in our own heads, wherever our heads go. Together._  
  
Hisoka hesitated. Is that the point? he wondered. Isn’t it enough to just feel it, without having to... I don’t know, think, maybe. Something.   
  
“I want to remember _you_ ,” Tsuzuki murmured, his hand resting on Hisoka, not moving, just touching. “Not just the feeling.” _I’ve had a lot of just feeling, with people whose names I can’t even remember now. That’s not what this is. Right?_  
  
“Mm,” Hisoka stalled, eyes open, but focused on the ceiling behind Tsuzuki.   
  
Tsuzuki looked down. _Am I asking too much? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, I don’t want to push you or make you uneasy. We can just... like usual, that’s very good, anyway. It doesn’t matter._  
  
Hisoka kissed him. _No. You’re not asking too much, I just... I never thought about it._ He pulled back, meeting Tsuzuki’s eyes. _Okay._   
  
Tsuzuki smiled, still not sure this was a fair thing to ask. _Okay,_ he sent, and thrust forward into Hisoka’s hand. Hisoka played, twining his fingers around Tsuzuki’s cock, feeling him vital and solid against his palm. It was hard not to lose focus, just fall into what Tsuzuki was feeling-- hard to keep his eyes open and focused. But he watched Tsuzuki’s mouth open, saw his eyes fill up with something tender and unhidden, impossible to hide. Oh, Hisoka thought, and Tsuzuki almost looked away himself, hard to hold on, to be seen. _Don’t know what he’ll see, if he looks hard enough,_ Hisoka caught. _Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, if he looks hard enough, maybe he’ll see everything about me that he must not have seen before, or he couldn’t love me--_ but Tsuzuki had good instincts, and he was good at going with them, and they had led him here. Here he was held, needed, loved, here Hisoka was feeling his weight on his thighs, could see his breath rise and fall, and was glad of it. Wanting, Hisoka thought. He wants me. Not what he makes of me, what he can use me for, what I can do for him-- he wants _me._   
  
Hisoka took Tsuzuki in his hands again, moving slick and steady on his shaft, watching Tsuzuki respond, watching his whole body seem to focus on Hisoka’s hand moving on his cock, feeling him lose track of everything else around him. His world was just Hisoka, not noticing the rattiness of the couch or the birdsong through the window-- just him. Just me, Hisoka thought, and Tsuzuki took his weight onto his elbow and brought his own hand up to his mouth and down to hold Hisoka. Hisoka panted, not sure how to look at him-- he could feel his eyes going unfocused and how could he do anything but hide how much he needed Tsuzuki’s touch? It left him so vulnerable. When had anything good ever come of giving someone else control over him?   
  
Now, he thought, and kept his eyes on Tsuzuki as he panted. Tsuzuki’s hand on him was perfect, bringing him harder and more wanting. He whimpered, thrusting upwards, and Tsuzuki didn’t laugh, didn’t pull away, just gave him what he needed-- faster movement, harder around him. And enjoyed giving it-- he fell into Tsuzuki for a moment, and Tsuzuki felt Hisoka’s hand moving on his cock, felt his own moving on Hisoka’s, had trouble telling apart which feeling was which.   
  
_Empathy,_ Hisoka sent, astonished, his hand clenching on Tsuzuki’s hips, pulling him closer, faster, feeling Tsuzuki’s breath hot on his cheek. _That’s what empathy feels like. Not knowing the difference..._  
  
Tsuzuki panted a half-laugh, his fingers shifting, playing patterns that made Hisoka writhe underneath him. _This? This feeling like you’re me?  
  
Yes, _Hisoka sent, and _yes_ , as Tsuzuki’s hand went slicker with precome, slicking down around him, the air on his wet skin adding to the sensation, multiplying it, intensifying it. _Just like that.  
  
Maybe because I want to feel you_, Tsuzuki sent, dreamily, a background to his thrusting into Hisoka’s hand, Hisoka moving with him, their wrists brushing. Tsuzuki grinned at him and shifted his hips, brought their fast-moving hands together, opened his hand and closed it around Hisoka’s so that their wet cocks were moving together, held in their hands, enclosed, every thrust driving them together. Hisoka cried out, opened his eyes quickly, and Tsuzuki was losing language, but there was still the feeling, _want your pleasure, want you..._  
  
Hisoka hooked his legs around Tsuzuki’s, clutched him to his chest, crushing their wrists between them in wanting more. His fingers interlocked with Tsuzuki’s, they moved together, and every stroke brought them closer, faster, whole bodies moving toward a single need. Together, they were together, voices echoing each other _want you need you love you here now here now_ , and it was right, just right, and Hisoka felt them getting closer, felt himself poised on the edge, no more stopping this than the sunrise. Tsuzuki’s eyes had gone unfocused, not because he was elsewhere, but because he didn’t need to see Hisoka to be here with him. _You_ , someone sent, more a feeling than a word, and then there were no more words. No more self, no more names, just this explosion of them, burning in each other’s heat, unconsumed-- just alight.  
  
Tsuzuki’s arm buckled, and he slumped against Hisoka’s chest, breathing fast. He tilted his head enough to see his face. _Good?_  
  
 _Good,_ Hisoka sent, and didn’t want to say any more, just to hold him here.   
  
_Good,_ Tsuzuki hummed, and drifted into him.   
  
Hisoka pulled his hand free, rested it stickily on Tsuzuki’s back. _I love you. That was... and I think we’re staining your couch._   
  
Tsuzuki sighed. _Worth it, though, right?_  
  
There was such a world of meaning that didn’t make it into any response he could make in words. “You are my home,” Hisoka whispered. “Tsuzuki.”   
  
Tsuzuki kissed him, gently, sweetly possessive. “Today,” he said. “We’re here today. Together. That’s enough.”   
  
“Mm,” Hisoka murmured, and said nothing more, just rested one hand on Tsuzuki’s hip, stroked his hair with the other. Here and now, he thought. You want to pretend this moment is forever? That... that would be all right. It was the last thing he remembered thinking.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

It was dark in the room when Hisoka woke up, Tsuzuki’s head heavy on his chest. His back was cramping, Hisoka realized. The couch wasn’t as comfortable as all that. He shifted, trying to ease the strain, and Tsuzuki murmured and snuggled closer, consciousness flickering at the edge of sleep. Hisoka lay still. Peaceful, he thought, he’s feeling peace-- he’s not dreaming yet. How often does he get to feel that way? And he won’t, after tonight...  
  
Hisoka clutched Tsuzuki to him, arms tightening around his partner’s back. Peace, he thought, remembering the feeling that afternoon-- that absolute liberation from his fears, from his passions. It’s not really fair, he thought, that I was the one who got to feel it. It felt good, but it would be better for him. So much of a relief-- it’s been almost a hundred years for him, hasn’t it? I wish he could feel that. I wish that more than anything.  
  
The apartment felt very hushed in the dark-- Tsuzuki didn’t own many electronics, and the constant background hums Hisoka was used to weren’t here. Still, this silence felt a little more, a little deeper. She’s not gone, is she? Hisoka thought. “Are You?” he whispered. No answer, but the darkness felt as if it were listening. Nothing else except for Tsuzuki’s breathing, gentle against his chest.   
  
Tsuzuki doesn’t have to be hurt any more, she’d said. But I don’t know whether you can free him and keep him at the same time.   
  
But maybe I don’t have to, Hisoka thought. Because he didn’t want to leave me. So... maybe I don’t need to clutch him like this. He loves me. Hisoka drifted into the remembered feeling, just before he’d fallen asleep-- together. He was there with me. Not because I tricked him or made him-- because it’s where he wants to be. He wants to hold me.  
  
There is someone in the world who could want me to be there. There really is.   
  
There were tears in Hisoka’s eyes, which confused him, but maybe they fit with the release he felt, the way his heart seemed to melt and run out through his chest, through Tsuzuki’s. I matter, he thought. I matter to him. I’m not alone. Even if he weren’t here with me-- I’m not alone any more.   
  
“Yes,” he whispered. “Please. Take him, if you can. It’s all right. If you can make him stop hurting, then that’s enough. That’s all I want.” His breath hitched. “Just let him be okay. I’d rather he were okay than with me.”   
  
The darkness seemed to breathe for a moment, and then it was just darkness, nothing more. Hisoka listened, felt, but there were only the distant feelings of the neighbors, the soft weight of Tsuzuki’s sleeping peace above him. Although, he thought, when he was sure she was gone, both would be good, too. There were tears in his eyes, flowing along the side of his face, and he would have had to take his hands off of Tsuzuki to wipe them away.   
  
He didn’t. He held on, staring up into the darkness, and listened to him breathe. From time to time, he whispered, “I love you,” and it didn’t matter that Tsuzuki didn’t hear him.   
  
Hisoka noticed the dawn light through the windows, drifted in and out of sleep as it crept closer, more insistently bright. When he had to close his eyes to keep the brightness out, he poked Tsuzuki. “Hey. Get up.”  
  
Tsuzuki murmured, nestling against him. “Mnm.”  
  
Hisoka jostled him harder. “Come on,” he said. “Tsuzuki. Move. You’re heavy.”  
  
Tsuzuki sighed, blinking at him. “Hisoka?” he murmured. “I didn’t dream.”   
  
“Good,” Hisoka said. “Though if you had, maybe we would have gotten off the damn couch.” He sounded grumpy, he realized, felt it, too. I didn’t sleep well, he thought.   
  
Tsuzuki sat up, quickly getting all of his weight off of Hisoka. “Sorry, Hisoka. Are you okay?”  
  
Hisoka shrugged, sitting up. “Yeah,” he said as his muscles, freed from their trapped position, quickly realigned, healing the soreness. Lousy time to be in a bad mood, he thought. It’d be a real waste to spend our last morning snapping at each other. If it is our last morning. He didn’t see how it wouldn’t be. Either his late-night... _prayer,_ he supposed, disliking the taste of the word in his mind... had worked, and she’d intercede, taking Tsuzuki off with her to her own realm-- or it hadn’t, and they would both be condemned. He didn’t think that having Tsuzuki with him in Hell would make it easier, really. More the reverse. Either way, this would be the last time he’d get to spend with Tsuzuki like this, and he didn’t want to spoil it.   
  
“I could rub your back,” Tsuzuki offered.   
  
Hisoka sighed, leaning against him. “Thanks.” He closed his eyes, leaning into his partner’s touch, trying hard not to shut down against the coming pain.  
  
It made it a little easier that Tsuzuki was hardly full of high spirits either. They showered together quietly, restrainedly, and if they clung to each other a little more tightly than need be to fit in the small stall, neither commented on it. Hisoka made miso and rice for Tsuzuki, picked at his own portion, too strung out to eat. They dressed slowly, Hisoka barely looking at the clothes he’d picked out, Tsuzuki taking a very long time to knot his tie. Hisoka sighed. Guess we can’t put it off any longer, he thought. “Ready?”  
  
Tsuzuki adjusted the tie. _If I said no, could we stay home?_ “Let’s go.”   
  
The office was quiet, just beginning its early-morning hum of people settling in for the long day ahead. The hallways echoed with their footsteps. “We’re early,” Tsuzuki said.  
  
“For once,” Hisoka said. He didn’t want to snap, he didn’t, but Tsuzuki was _strumming_ with fear and it resonated with his own until he could barely think. Where is she? he wondered. I told her she could take him-- when is she going to show up? The thought that she wouldn’t didn’t deserve consideration. No, he should just plan for how to say goodbye. He should try not to be emotional about it, he thought, or Tsuzuki would get upset. More upset. He should stay calm.  
  
There was no calm. Especially as they neared the office and Hisoka’s nerves chattered as if they were battery-powered. That’s not all ours, he realized, just before Tsuzuki opened the office door.  
  
Hisoka was impressed again at Tatsumi’s control-- he didn’t jump. He just looked up a little faster than seemed possible. “Tsuzuki-san,” he breathed.  
  
Tsuzuki smiled. “’Morning.”  
  
“Hey, Tsuzuki,” Watari put in, and his presence here instead of in the lab would have been more than enough to tell Hisoka something was out of the ordinary-- the scientist’s rapid-fire flickering of emotions was almost superfluous. “Kid. Where did you get off to yesterday?”  
  
“Oh,” Tsuzuki said, resting his coat on a coatrack and sinking into his chair, “that. We killed Muraki.”   
  
This time, their coworkers did jump. “Really?” Watari asked.  
  
“Really, this time,” Hisoka said. He glanced down at his arm, which stayed clean and unmarked no matter how much he thought about yesterday. “He’s gone for good.”   
  
“ _Good,_ ” Tatsumi said, eyes fierce behind his glasses. Some regret that he hadn’t helped, but most of what Hisoka got from him was deep, astonished pride. “Well-done. Both of you,” and he finally looked at Hisoka, grateful and satisfied.  
  
“Yeah,” Watari said, still not quite believing his ears. “Congratulations.” His mind clicked into analysis, running through the scenarios he’d come up with to accomplish the task, wondering which of them had been effective, or maybe a new one-- and remembering why he had stopped this line of inquiry. His face fell. “So,” he said, half-hoping, “Konoe was wrong? He wasn’t really an angel?”   
  
Hisoka heard his own voice going flat, emotionless. “No. He really was an angel. We killed him anyway.”  
  
Watari glanced at Tatsumi, wincing. Tatsumi’s faint smile faded, leaving his fear unhidden for one empty moment. He pushed up his glasses. “You acted against Enma’s orders.”  
  
“Looks that way,” Tsuzuki said, ruffling the pages on his desk.   
  
“Tsuzuki-san,” Tatsumi sighed.  
  
Tsuzuki met his eyes. “I couldn’t leave him there,” he said quietly.   
  
Watari’s regret crashed-- _never should have told him about the clone-- don’t know what else I could have done, but..._ He tried to meet Hisoka’s gaze. Hisoka looked away.  
  
Tatsumi stood perfectly still. “You said you were glad to be saved, after we returned from Kyoto,” he said. “You thanked me. But you would not let me do it again?” He glared at Hisoka, who took a step backwards, hands twitching at his sides. “Did either of you mean what you said back then? Kurosaki-kun?” His voice did not break. “Tsuzuki-san?”  
  
“Yes,” Tsuzuki said. “I meant it, Tatsumi. This was different.”   
  
“Yes,” Tatsumi said. “This time, my shadows have nowhere to hide you.”  
  
“Wait,” Watari broke in, “wait. We have that captive demon in the basement-- if we can get it to possess you now, we could say it wasn’t your fault. It’s worked before.” He took in their stares. “Or hide you-- we can find a pocket dimension, we could ‘trap’ you there, and then--”  
  
“And then,” Konoe said, coming in, “Enma could fire all _four_ of you, and the department could be maimed, not just crippled.” His coat hung on him like his misery, and his growl sounded ripped at the edges. He glared at Tsuzuki, not a happy glare. “Gods damn it, Tsuzuki, couldn’t you have left well enough alone?” Tsuzuki heard the pain in Konoe’s voice as well as Hisoka felt it, and opened his mouth. Konoe overrode him. “You don’t listen. You never listen. Why would it be different this time? Just because this time, it will get you destroyed--”  
  
“ _Hey_ ,” Hisoka snapped. “Sir. Sirs. Is yelling at him-- us-- going to help?” Konoe opened his mouth. “It won’t make you feel better,” Hisoka overrode him, “It makes it worse.”   
  
Although, he realized in the silence that fell, if they weren’t yelling at Tsuzuki, there was nothing to say.   
  
“Chief Konoe,” Tatsumi started, and from the stiffness of his tone, Hisoka knew it was going to be a plea.  
  
So did Konoe. “No,” he snapped. “I tried. I argued with him for all of yesterday evening. No.” He turned to Tsuzuki and Hisoka, forcing himself to look them in the eye. “Hall of Judgment. Both of you. Don’t worry about cleaning out your desks-- we’ll take care of it.”  
  
Hisoka swallowed. “Yes, sir.”  
  
Tatsumi crossed his arms over the emptiness in his chest. Watari sniffled. Then he came forward, pulled Tsuzuki to his feet, and wrapped him in a hug. “Damn,” he whispered. “Now who am I gonna get as a test subject, huh?” Tsuzuki hesitated for a moment, then leaned into the hug, thumping Watari on the back. Watari looked over Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “Good going, kid,” he said, and meant it.  
  
“Thank-you, Watari-san,” Hisoka said.  
  
Tsuzuki pulled back from the hug. “Good luck with your potion,” he said, finding a smile somewhere. “You’ll get it eventually.”  
  
“Of course I will,” Watari said. “Take care of yourself, Tsuzuki.”   
  
Hisoka felt his partner’s amusement, dark and unexpressed. “You too,” Tsuzuki said. He looked past Watari. “Chief... Tatsumi.” There was a rush of things he didn’t say. _I’m sorry I’ve been so much trouble to you. I’m glad you tried to watch out for me. Please don’t feel bad about me._ “You did a lot for me,” he said. “Thank you.” He flashed them a smile, and Tatsumi caught his breath at the beauty of it.  
  
“I’ll miss you, Tsuzuki-san,” Tatsumi murmured. “Kurosaki-kun.” He cleared his throat.  
  
Konoe humphed. It sounded like agreement.  
  
“Well.” Tsuzuki walked to the coatrack, putting his trenchcoat on with careless dignity. “Guess that’s all.” He shrugged on the coat, arranged the lapels. “Let’s go, Hisoka.”  
  
“Right,” Hisoka said. He took one last look at the place he’d learned to call home, at the people who had made it so. Then he followed Tsuzuki out the door.   
  
They walked in silence. Hisoka could feel a stupid, nervous joke bubbling at the top of Tsuzuki’s thoughts. Tsuzuki didn’t make it. Instead, he held out a hand, and Hisoka took it, clenching hard. I’m going to Hell, Hisoka thought. He hadn’t let himself really think about it, but the images had been so painfully clear in his coworkers’ minds. It’s going to hurt like nothing before, and it might not be enough of a consolation knowing that Tsuzuki’s safe.  
  
Assuming he will be safe. Assuming she heard me.  
  
I could have sworn she heard me.  
  
Assuming she cares.  
  
“Dammit,” Hisoka swore aloud, “where is she?”  
  
Tsuzuki looked down at him. “Who?”  
  
“ _Kwannon,_ ” Hisoka spat. “Boddhisattva of compassion-- hah! If she hears so well, why doesn’t she _listen?” Because I did what you wanted,_ he thought, sending it out into the aether. _And I asked you for help. But I will_ never _forgive you if you make me beg._ He stopped in the middle of the hallway, shouting. “ _Where the hell are You?_ ”  
  
“Well,” said the gravely voice, “I was in the Hall of Judgment. I was planning to make this properly official. But you have a point.”  
  
It was kind of her, Hisoka thought, to keep the face that they knew-- wrinkled, weatherworn, and quite unreadable. Beyond that, she would have been unrecognizable. She wore a business suit of surpassing whiteness, her hair back in ornamented braids, and she walked like the queen of the world. Which was legitimate, Hisoka supposed.  
  
“Yin-san?” Tsuzuki asked.   
  
“Certainly,” she said. “If you like.” She smiled. “You’ve had a rough week, son.”  
  
Tsuzuki shrugged. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”   
  
“Mm,” she said, “so I see. But it ends now.” She held up a piece of paper. “Your transfer request came through.”  
  
Tsuzuki blinked. “Transfer request?”   
  
She held out the paper at arm’s length. “Tsuzuki Asato,” she read, “effective immediately, you are dismissed from Enma-cho, Summons Department, and reassigned to Bosatsu-cho, Mercy Department. You will assist the boddhisattva Kwannon in the answering of prayers as she sees fit. Duties to include, though not be confined to, such activities as saving lives, healing wounds, averting disasters, casting out demons, finding lost toys...”  
  
Getting kittens out of trees, Hisoka thought.   
  
She caught his eye. _No. Most kittens figure out how to get down all by themselves. Eventually._  
  
Tsuzuki looked stunned. “But I didn’t request a transfer,” he said.  
  
“I know,” Kwannon said. “I noticed. Your partner did it for you.”  
  
Tsuzuki turned to him. “Hisoka?”  
  
Hisoka shrugged. “I just figured you spent too much time slacking off to actually get to retire yet,” he said. He blew out his breath, rolling his eyes. “That’s all.”  
  
Tsuzuki smiled, tearing up. Then he frowned. “But then what happens to you?” he asked. He clenched his fists. “No. You’re _not_ going to Hell for me, Hisoka.”  
  
Hisoka glared. “Don’t tell me what to do.”   
  
“ _No_ ,” Tsuzuki said. He faced Kwannon squarely. “I’m not going without Hisoka. There’s no way I would let him suffer for me.” He shook his head. “No-one is ever going to suffer for me again. I swear.” He stared for a long moment at the page, then pushed her hand away. “Forget it.”   
  
“But--” Hisoka started, meaning to continue, but it’s all right, I want to. But there was that certainty again, and he couldn’t fight that. But... “Tsuzuki...”  
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “It’s not right,” he said. “If anyone’s saved, it should be you, Hisoka. You saved me already.” He turned to Kwannon. “Can’t you take him, instead?”  
  
“Instead?” Kwannon asked, handing over two pieces of paper. “What is this ‘instead’ thing?”  
  
She only had one page before, Hisoka thought. Magic tricks. That’s not much. That’s...  
  
He stared down at the neat kanji of his name at the top of the second piece of paper. _Kurosaki Hisoka, effective immediately, you are dismissed from Enma-cho, Summons Department, and reassigned to Bosatsu-cho..._ “But you said I had to let him go,” he said.  
  
“And you did,” she said. “Well done. I never said anything about _him_ letting go of _you._ ”   
  
Oh, Hisoka thought, staring at the page in his hand. It didn’t make sense to him. But there it was, in solid black-and-white.   
  
Tsuzuki looked back and forth between the two of them. “That,” he said slowly, “that’s it? That’s all?”  
  
She cocked her elegantly-coiffed head. “We could set off fireworks, if you like.”  
  
Tsuzuki shook his head. “I don’t deserve this,” he said. “You’re talking about Heaven. That’s not what I deserve.”   
  
“I don’t care,” Kwannon said. She put a hand on his shoulder. “I love you. I’ve been watching you your whole life, and you haven’t gotten a break yet. Enough.”   
  
Tsuzuki was wide-eyed. “Not my whole life,” he said. “You couldn’t have. Or you’d know.”  
  
“I do know,” she said. She sighed and pressed the paper into his hand. “Here. It’s up to you, son. Here’s the order. If you think you need to be punished for your crimes that way, then just let it drop somewhere. In front of Enma’s throne, say. You know how to do that. You’ve done it before. It’s up to you. Kurosaki, keep your mouth shut.”  
  
Hisoka frowned. _Tsu_ \-- he started to send and met a clear, solid wall.  
  
 _Let him choose,_ he heard.  
  
Tsuzuki stared at the paper in his hands, mind not even racing, just gone blank. _She’s wrong,_ Hisoka heard. _She can’t mean it._  
  
Duties to include, though not be confined to, such activities as saving lives, healing wounds, averting disasters, casting out demons...  
  
Please. It’s what I want, what I’ve always wanted-- just to help. Just to think maybe I’ve done something decent, something good. Just to make things a little bit better...  
  
And... what’s the point in paying for what I’ve done when I could be doing something to fix it?  
  
But I’m so tired.  
  
But...  
  
Tsuzuki met Hisoka’s eyes. “Mm,” he said, “Well, if you already know about that trick, there’s not much point in trying to use it, huh?” He sighed. “All right, Boss. Should I call you Boss?”  
  
“If you like,” Kwannon said. She set her uninterpretable gaze on Hisoka. “You, on the other hand, can call me Kwannon-sama.” He still couldn’t figure her out-- was that humor? “It’ll make a nice break from the swearing.”  
  
Maybe it was. Enough that Hisoka risked saying, “If you’ll quit calling me ‘boy.’”  
  
“Of course,” Kwannon said. “You aren’t one any more, Kurosaki.”  
  
Hisoka blinked. Oh, he thought. No, I suppose not. He let a half-smile twist his lips upward.  
  
“You’re not getting an easy job,” Kwannon warned. “We hear every prayer, spoken or unspoken. We answer as many as we have staff to cover. That means long hours of your hardest work.” She fixed them both with a hard look. “I know what you’re capable of. I’ll expect to see it.”  
  
Tsuzuki met her eyes, and Hisoka had never seen a smile like that from him before. It had promise in it. “Yes, Boss,” he said.  
  
Kwannon nodded. “Good,” she said. “Come on, then.”   
  
Tsuzuki looked back, and Hisoka followed him. All right, he thought, passing through the halls, half-listening to the boddhisattva describing their new duties. It seemed like such a long time he’d been here-- a lifetime. He’d never known before what it was like to hold someone when he cried. Or to feel fear for someone else, a thousand times more gut-wrenching than on your own behalf. Or to fall into the pattern of somebody’s breathing.  
  
It’s been good, Hisoka thought, more or less. Even with all the horror. I’m glad I came here.  
  
But it’s time to move on.  
  
They stepped out the front door and disappeared, leaving only a wind to rustle the cherry blossoms behind them.


	17. Epilogue

Date: May 20, 1999  
To: tsuzukia@kwannon.bosatsu.net, kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: ishidame@jizo.bosatsu.net  
Subject: Fwd: Application for Salvation  
  
Tsuzuki-san, Kurosaki-san-- This seems to have been sent to our department in error. I’m assuming that you’ll want to deal with it?  
  
\--Ishida Meiko, Salvation Department  
  
PS. Congratulations on your transfer; we look forward to working with you. My respects to your boss.  
  
  
>Date: May 18, 1999  
>To: ishidame@jizo.bosatsu.net  
>From: tatsumise@shinigami.enma.net  
>Subject: Application for Salvation  
>  
>Ishida-san:   
>   
>Attached please find two (2) completed applications for salvation from   
>suffering in Hell 16-A, Avichi-Kukula. As you will see from the applications,   
>the two individuals in question, Tsuzuki Asato and Kurosaki Hisoka, are   
>excellent candidates for shortened sentences due to their years of service to   
>the Ministry and the pure motivations for their crime. I look forward to your   
>reply.  
>  
>My sincere thanks,   
>Tatsumi Seiichiro, Summons Department   
  
  
  
Date: May 20, 1999  
To: tatsumise@shinigami.enma.net  
From: tsuzukia@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
Subject: it’s okay!  
  
Tatsumi-- didn’t they tell you what happened?! we’re not in hell. we’re alright-- we got transferred to the Mercy Department instead. i’ve attached a copy of our transfer, and our new contact information. it’s okay. you don’t have to worry about us. call when you get this email-- i’d really like to talk to you.   
  
\--Tsuzuki   
  
  
Date: May 21, 1999  
To: tsuzukia@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: systemadmin@nyorai.net  
Re: Delivery Status Notification (failure)   
  
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.  
  
Delivery to the following recipients failed.  
  
       tatsumise@shinigami.enma.net  
  
  
  
Date: May 21, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: systemadmin@nyorai.net  
Re: Delivery Status Notification (failure)   
  
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.  
  
Delivery to the following recipients failed.  
  
       tatsumise@shinigami.enma.net  
  
  
  
Date: May 22, 1999  
To: tsuzukia@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: systemadmin@nyorai.net  
Re: Delivery Status Notification (failure)   
  
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.  
  
Delivery to the following recipients failed.  
  
       tatsumise@shinigami.enma.net  
watariyu@shinigami.enma.net  
guosho1@shinigami.enma.net  
guosho2@shinigami.enma.net  
konoe@shinigami.enma.net...  
  
  
  
  
Watari leaned forward in his chair, staring at the computer in front of him. That had definitely been a blip, he thought. The email system had _blipped_. Just momentarily, but still... there was something there. And he was sure it wasn’t because of anything _he_ had programmed. Well, then-- no choice but to go figure out what was going on. He cracked his knuckles, ready to get in there and play. Actually, he thought, it’d be nice to get out of the oppressive atmosphere around here, even if it were only to go further into the system. The office was so _quiet_ lately.   
  
Now, this-- swimming through programs, diving into data-streams-- this was more like it. He identified the source of the discrepancy as being an administrator command-- _not_ one of his. Watari frowned, concentrating-- there. “Forbidden ISP addresses.” _That_ was a filter he’d never had reason to put in place-- who would have the authorization to do that? And why forbid the... he paused to look up numbers-- Bosatsu-Cho? What could the boddhisattvas possibly be doing that anyone here wouldn’t want to know about? And there were specific email addresses, too...   
  
Watari went perfectly still.  
  
 _tsuzukia@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net_  
  
It took him a few rings to notice his office phone. “Science Department.”  
  
“Watari.” The voice on the other end of the phone was not one he’d heard often, but it was instantly recognizable. “You can stop looking into this, now.”  
  
“This?” Watari asked.  
  
“Former employees.” Watari’s screen went blank. “They have nothing to do with your job. Nor with you.”   
  
Watari blinked, mind kicking back online. “Sir, surely the computer system...”  
  
“Watari,” he heard, “Do you like having a science department?”  
  
“...yes.”  
  
“Do you want to keep having one?”  
  
“Yes. Sir.”   
  
“Then you’ll stop investigating this. And keep it to yourself. I don’t want to find out that you’ve been spreading rumors around the department. Is that clear?”  
  
Watari’s hands clenched on the desk. “But sir-- if Tsuzuki’s writing emails, then he--”  
  
“ _Left._ ” and Watari hadn’t realized a voice could thunder over the phone. “Got away. Betrayed me,” and a pause as the speaker recollected himself. “So he’ll have nothing further to do with this department. Do you understand?”  
  
Watari bit his lip. “Yes, Lord Enma.”   
  
The phone line disconnected. Watari stared at the screen in front of him, at his own darkened reflection in the glass. So, he thought. Tsuzuki and Hisoka were forbidden to write them emails. Which meant Tsuzuki and Hisoka had the ability to write them emails. Which meant... that he didn’t have enough data yet to start crying. Or capering around the office whooping. It was a possibility, he told himself. Not a certainty, no matter how much he wanted it to be. And he’d been forbidden to investigate further...  
  
He’d have to think about this.   
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Tatsumi frowned into the November wind, thinking that it took “bracing” a bit too far for his taste. This was shaping up to be a grey day, stormy and wet, and all in all, he would rather be back in Meifu than stalking the darkening streets of Nagasaki. Taking over Kyushu after Tsuzuki-san’s... departure had seemed the appropriate thing to do, but Tatsumi still spent as little time in the field as his duties permitted. At times like this, when his presence in the living world was urgently called for (this time, oddly enough, by Watari-san, who had given no details, simply told him that he was coming along and that it was _important,_ no, really, Tatsumi, we need to deal with this one _personally_ ), he tried to be as efficient as possible. He would go, accomplish the assignment, purchase the requested souvenirs at a reasonable price, and depart. Kyushu had associations on which he preferred not to dwell.  
  
Thus, he came with the hospital’s location firmly in mind. Iekuhara Chio should have died some time ago; her liver cancer was inoperable. Only a fortuitous combination of lucky charms and small statues of gods placed around her bed in precisely the correct arrangement by her unwitting daughter had created a sphere of preservation, preventing her death. It seemed too simple a case to require his attention, and Watari’s insistence puzzled him, as did the scientist’s apparant nerves during the briefing. In the end, he supposed, he had agreed to come along more out of curiosity as to Watari’s concern than because he thought the case merited it.   
  
Upon their arrival, Tatsumi surveyed the small hospital room invisibly. The scattering of fruits, photographs, and the unfortunate charms made it easy to see which of the four beds in the room belonged to Iekuhara-san, even without the clue of her daughter by her bedside. Iekuhara Kazue-san lay holding her mother’s hand, her neck crinked at an uncomfortable-looking angle to rest on her mother’s bed. Her sleeping face was not peaceful.   
  
Tatsumi nodded to Watari and stepped forward, visible only to Chio. He cleared his throat. “Iekuhara Chio-san?” he said quietly.  
  
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Watari yelped.  
  
Tatsumi stepped into a shadow, slipping instantaneously across the room, arriving with his back to the wall, ready for action. Whatever had been able to see shinigami at work was powerful, was possibly deadly...  
  
...was grinning at him with wide, impossibly familiar purple eyes. Saying, “Tatsumi-- _finally!_ ”  
  
Tatsumi stared. “...Tsuzuki-san!”  
  
And he was being _hugged_ , Tatsumi realized, too quickly to appreciate the strong arms around him before Tsuzuki pulled away again to embrace Watari, who was grinning like a sun. “It’s so good to see you! We’ve missed you so much! Right, Hisoka?”  
  
Tatsumi tore his glance away from Tsuzuki-san to look over his shoulder. Kurosaki-kun looked... different, he thought. It wasn’t just that he wore traditional clothing-- a white kendo jacket and hakama, which seemed to suit the sheathed katana at his waist-- there was something about his face. There was something about both of their faces. “Kurosaki-kun...”  
  
“Tatsumi-san,” Kurosaki said, sounding pleased. Actually, for him, that sounded almost giddy. Tatsumi wondered whether the boy were picking up on his own soaring relief. Kurosaki frowned. “Watari-san. You got our messages?”  
  
Tatsumi supposed his shock was showing clearly even without empathy. “Messages?”  
  
“They’ve been trying to email us,” Watari nearly cackled, swinging Tsuzuki around the room. “But Lord Enma’s kind of pissed, so they haven’t been getting through. But they’re okay!” he beamed at Tsuzuki, at Hisoka over his shoulder, his exuberance spilling over into the room. “You’re _fine._ You’re okay...”   
  
Tatsumi shook his head, still having difficulty taking in more than the simple fact of Tsuzuki in front of him. He had been so sure his former partner had been in Hell, hurt beyond any means of his saving. He had pictured it so many times, over the past few weeks. He hesitated, then asked the question he had to ask. “Tsuzuki-san, you are... all right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Tsuzuki said, delightedly reassuring. “We got transferred-- we’re working for the Mercy Department now. We spend all day going around saving people. We’re okay.”   
  
“That’s good to hear, Tsuzuki-san,” Tatsumi said. “Very good.”   
  
Tsuzuki grinned. “I’m so glad you finally found out,” he said. “We didn’t want you to be worried about us, and when we found out there were wards around Meifu and we couldn’t get back in...” He trailed off, and it occurred to Tatsumi that he had never before heard Tsuzuki-san say something that implied he expected others to think about him with any sort of positive regard. “But what did you come _here_ for? You undercover?”  
  
“No,” Tatsumi said, remembering. “We’re here on assignment.” He nodded toward the bed. “This person has outlived her time.”   
  
Tsuzuki and Kurosaki exchanged a look. “Oh,” Tsuzuki said. “You mean... Um. About that...”  
  
“Tatsumi-san,” Kurosaki said, “I’m afraid we’re also here on assignment.”   
  
“On assignment?” Tatsumi asked.   
  
Watari coughed. Tatsumi glanced at him, suspicious.   
  
Tsuzuki pulled a neatly-folded piece of paper out of a trenchcoat pocket. “It’s Chio-san,” he said. “She’s part of a cancer study. And it’s... what’s it called...”  
  
“Double-blind,” Kurosaki said.  
  
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “So she’s been getting the treatment that doesn’t work as well, so that they can be really scientific, but it means she’s dying. She’ll be fine if we just switch her to the other kind of medicine.”   
  
Watari blinked. “What? But-- you’d mess up their results.”   
  
“Yes,” Kurosaki said after a measured pause. “We will.” He did not look terribly concerned about the idea.   
  
Tatsumi frowned. “Tsuzuki-san-- it’s too late for that. She should already be dead. It was only luck that has kept her alive.”  
  
“Well,” Tsuzuki said, “luck and love.” He gestured at Kazue. “Her daughter’s been praying for her, way too hard to ignore. We’re here to answer the prayer.”   
  
“Wait,” Tatsumi said. “Tsuzuki-san... we’ve been ordered to bring her back for judgment.”  
  
“Ah,” Tsuzuki said. He hesitated, then said, simply, “Sorry, Tatsumi. Our orders trump yours.” He held out the page. “Check out the fine print.”  
  
Tatsumi examined the order. It seemed quite clear. The fine print spelled out the orders which this one could override very precisely, with “summons to the Judgment Bureau” first on the list. Tatsumi hesitated. He had, on rare occasions, heard of agents of other Ministries interfering in JuOhCho cases. He had not expected it to happen here, nor to him.   
  
Kurosaki was watching him. “Tatsumi-san,” he said warningly, his sheathed sword within easy reach of his hand, “you understand, right?”  
  
It was inconvenient, Tatsumi thought, that the first time he saw Tsuzuki-san was over an inter-office debate. Although on the other hand, he supposed that this was the only way for them to meet-- in the living world, where neither of their Ministries held sway. Tatsumi glanced at Watari, wondering again about the seeming coincidence of their rendezvous.   
  
“Tatsumi,” Tsuzuki said, with weight behind his words, “you don’t really want to fight us, do you?” His voice tripped upwards invitingly. “Why don’t you come visit, instead? We could make you tea. Um, Hisoka could make you tea. I’m getting better at it, though...”   
  
Something had changed, Tatsumi thought. Normally, Tsuzuki-san would have spent fifteen minutes whining about an implied insult to his cooking. But then, normally, Tsuzuki-san wouldn’t dream of seriously challenging him, no matter what the stakes.   
  
Tatsumi allowed a small smile to appear on his face. “Perhaps later, Tsuzuki-san.” He folded the order carefully and handed it to his former partner. “We will have to return to the Juoh-Cho to report the failure of this assignment first, I’m afraid. Though I suspect Chief Konoe may not be too displeased to hear the reason.”   
  
Tsuzuki nodded, accepting the surrender gracefully. “Hope so,” he said, and Tatsumi was amazed at the lack of apology in him. He had often noticed something wheedling in Tsuzuki-san’s smile, like a child trying to charm his guardians into some indulgence, or out of trouble for some mischief. But he was a grown man, Tatsumi had sometimes thought with irritation, wondering whether the older shinigami would ever act his age-- and what it would look like if he did so.   
  
Tsuzuki smiled. Imagination proved insufficient.   
  
“Hang on, then,” Tsuzuki said. “This’ll just take a minute.” He caught Kurosaki’s eye. “You handle the computer, I’ll change the actual medicine?” Kurosaki nodded. Tatsumi stood back, crossing his arms at rest. Watari looked torn for a moment, but then followed Kurosaki invisibly out of the room, looking for a computer. Tsuzuki smiled at Tatsumi once more, then turned back to Iekuhara-san. His smile did not fade entirely, but it ceased to be communication, becoming instead a reflection of his concentration. Carefully, Tsuzuki pulled an IV-bag from his trenchcoat pocket. With deft hands, he detached the bag currently feeding into Iekuhara-san’s arm and replaced it with the identical-looking one he had brought. He checked the connections and the monitors above her bed and breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay,” he said. “Whew. That worked.”   
  
Tatsumi raised an eyebrow. “You’ve studied nursing, Tsuzuki-san?”  
  
“Just that part,” his former partner said. “I spent about three hours last night practicing. It was the simplest way to get the job done, but I wanted to be sure I got it right.” He checked the monitors again and smiled. “Looks like I did.”   
  
Tatsumi considered the sleeping patient. “This will cure her?”   
  
“Yep,” Tsuzuki said. Satisfaction saturated his voice. “She should turn around in about a week.” He turned to Tatsumi. “After that, we can move some of the charms, if you want, so we get rid of the sphere. She won’t be using it any more.”  
  
“That would be helpful, Tsuzuki-san. Thank-you.”   
  
“Sure thing.” Tsuzuki looked down one last time at Iekuhara-san. He smiled at Kazue-san, smoothing her hair from her face. “Well-done,” he whispered to her. “She’s alive thanks to you, Kazue. Be proud.” The daughter’s frown eased, and she nestled closer to her mother’s sleeping form. Tsuzuki stepped back. “That’s that. As soon as Hisoka’s done, we can go.”   
  
Tatsumi looked back at the bed, and at Tsuzuki-san standing over it. Iekuhara-san looked no different, really, but the room felt less oppressive, less despairing. “This is your work, now?” Tatsumi asked.   
  
“Pretty much,” Tsuzuki said. “Guess it’s kind of boring compared to shinigami work, huh?”  
  
“Perhaps,” Tatsumi said. “But perhaps excitement is overrated.” He smiled. “Tsuzuki-san-- you seem much happier now than you were.”  
  
Tsuzuki turned to meet his eyes. “I am. It’s not perfect, but... yeah. I am.”   
  
Tatsumi took off his glasses to polish them, looking down. He’s happy, he thought. All I’ve wanted for the last fifty years was for him to be happy. And now, through no action of mine, he is.   
  
He spent some effort on getting the glasses clean.  
  
The door opened to admit Kurosaki and Watari. Watari was sounding incredulous. “But where do you even _keep_ that many dogs?”   
  
“Come over and see for yourself,” Kurosaki said, strangely without rancor. Tatsumi would have expected Kurosaki-kun to snap that phrase, but his voice was strangely unirritated, even amused  
  
Watari seemed to be having the same thought, and relaxed from his teasing stance with a thoughtful “Hm.”  
  
Tsuzuki had eyes only for Kurosaki. “Got it?”   
  
“Got it,” Kurosaki said with an unfamiliar half-smile. “She’s on the highest dosage, now.”   
  
“Good,” Tsuzuki said. He turned to his former colleagues. “Done,” he said, grinning again. “ _Gods,_ it’s good to see you.”  
  
“You’re telling me,” Watari said good-naturedly. “You guys had the easy part-- at least you knew where we were.” His voice broke, very slightly, but enough to notice, and Tatsumi felt a momentary embarassment for him. Surely, that had revealed more emotion than the scientist had intended. For his own part, he kept still.  
  
Kurosaki put a reassuring hand on Watari’s arm, and the movement looked so natural that it took Tatsumi a moment to understand why it startled him. “We didn’t know what would happen either, when we left,” Kurosaki said. “We didn’t mean to worry you. Any of you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Watari said, shrugging. “Well. All’s well that ends well, right?” He glanced quizzically at his arm where Kurosaki had touched him.   
  
“I think so,” Tsuzuki said. He studied Watari’s face for a moment. “And thanks.”   
  
Watari frowned. “What for?”  
  
“Well...” Tsuzuki said. “For everything, I guess. I mean-- Tatsumi, they forwarded us the applications you sent for us.” He met Tatsumi’s eye. “Thank-you.”   
  
Tatsumi cleared his throat. “It seemed the best option available,” he said. “I am simply glad it proved unnecessary.”  
  
Tsuzuki cocked his head, apparantly listening, though Tatsumi heard nothing. Tsuzuki glanced at Kurosaki, though, and nodded slightly. “Not unnecessary,” Tsuzuki said aloud. “It just didn’t do what you meant it to.” He smiled again. “But it matters, Tatsumi.” Tatsumi raised an eyebrow. Tsuzuki shrugged. “That you tried. That you cared. It matters.”   
  
Tatsumi froze, uncertain-- he had not known Tsuzuki-san to speak aloud about these things. “Tsuzuki-san...”   
  
Tsuzuki met his eyes for a moment, and there were fifty years in them. I had not thought he knew, Tatsumi heard himself thinking. I had not thought he understood.   
  
“Anyway,” Tsuzuki said. “We should get back, you should get back-- but if you meet us back here at about six, we can take you home with us for dinner. Sound good?”   
  
Watari glanced at Tatsumi, then said “Yeah.” He smirked. “You’re cooking, right, ki-- Kurosaki?”   
  
Kurosaki gave him the unfamiliar smile. “Yeah. Don’t worry.” Tsuzuki grinned at them again, and the former shinigami vanished.   
  
Tatsumi looked around the now much-emptier hospital room. “That went well,” Watari said.  
  
“You did set this up, then?” Tatsumi asked, just to be sure.  
  
“Yep,” Watari said. “Hacked into the Bosatsu-Cho computers and correlated all their assignments with ours until I found a match. Not too difficult.” He glanced at Tatsumi. “I, ah, should have told you ahead of time?”  
  
Tatsumi pushed up his glasses. “No, no, Watari-san... this is a fine method. I’ll be sure to apply it to the budget planning next quarter.” Watari squawked. “A word or two of warning might have been nice.”   
  
“I’m sorry,” the scientist said, sounding subdued. “I wasn’t sure, you know? The emails and all suggested this, but until I saw them...” He sighed. “So much happens to them. I didn’t want to say they were okay until I had proof.”   
  
“Mm.” Tatsumi looked down at Chio-san’s sleeping face. “He seems happy,” Tatsumi said, almost to himself.   
  
“It’s about time,” Watari said.   
  
Tatsumi nodded. “Yes,” he said, “it is.”  
  
The shinigami disappeared, heading back to Meifu.  
  
  
**************************************************************************  
  
  
Date: August 6, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: Fukou@earthlink.net  
Subject: drinking  
  
Soka-- So it seems to me like you owe me a drink you know? I mean, I ordered all of youres that time. Thats hardly fair. Besides, I want you to tell me about how the summons ddepartments changed since I ws here last because I got transferred back over. It left them pretty short-staffed when you left and I figured what the heck. I didn’t really do much when I was a shinigami last time, Asato-kun did most of my work for me. Which I guess I was thinking about since we talked.   
  
Anyway. So our boss is pretty pissed at you guys now so I guess we better meet the same place we met last time. Pick a day if you want to show. And if your partner wants to come, I guess I’ve got things to say to him too.   
  
Cobngrats on your transfer and everything.  
  
\--Fukou  
  
  
  
Date: August 9, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: Fukou@earthlink.net  
Subject: drinking  
  
Soka-- did you get my email?   
  
\--Fukou  
  
  
  
Date: August 11, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: Fukou@earthlink.net  
  
Soka-- did you get my email or not? Come on don’t be aprick, I’m trying to apologize here. Lighten up.  
  
  
  
Date: August 12, 1999  
To: kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
From: Fukou@earthlink.net  
  
Fine. Asshole.  
  
Have a nice death.  
  
\--Fukou  
  
  
  
  
Date: August 12, 1999  
To: Fukou@earthlink.net  
From: kurosakihi@kwannon.bosatsu.net  
Subject: re: drinking  
  
Fukou-- you’re right. I should have emailed you back.   
  
I’m not going to apologize for what I said-- I was right about how you treated Tsuzuki, and I’m not sorry I made that clear to you. But I was wrong to think you meant him harm, and I was wrong to blame you for his mistakes.   
  
Yes, I’ll drink with you again. Tsuzuki says he’ll come, too-- he has a few things to say to you, but he has missed you. Would this Saturday evening at nine work for you?   
  
\--Kurosaki Hisoka  
  
  
  
Hisoka hesitated for a long moment, his mouse hovering over the “delete” button. It had taken him most of an hour to type those words, and they still felt wrong. Too weak. Too easy.   
  
Free him, he thought. Let go.   
  
Hisoka hit “send.”   
  
  
  
END  
  
  
  
 _There’s the wind, and the rain, and the mercy of the fallen  
Who say hey, it’s not my place to know what’s right.  
There’s the weak, and the strong, and the many stars that guide us  
We have some of them inside us. _  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jizo is a bodhisattva, like Kwannon, who is famous as the savior of those souls suffering in Hell. 
> 
> Avichi (“Uninterrupted”) is the hottest hell in Buddhist cosmology, reserved for those who murder their parents or harm a divine figure (like a Buddha). 
> 
> A hakama is the traditional loose trousers worn by people practicing kendo and other martial arts. Hisoka wears one in the New Year’s arc in the manga.
> 
> Potala is Kwannon’s realm (and also the name of the traditional earthly residence of the Dali Lama). In Chinese legend, it is considered to be an island in the “southern ocean.” In this world, it seemed that Okinawa (Japan’s southernmost island, famous as a tropical vacation spot) would be the right earthly equivalent. According to Buddhist tradition, anyone who prays to Kwannon can be reborn in Potala, breaking free of the cycle of reincarnation.


End file.
